McAllister 2

by Matt Chisholm

  McAllister looked at him.

  “Yes, Charlie,” he said, “you’re still an old liar.”

  The old man took a pace backward. His face was slack and his eyes wide with astonishment and anger.

  “What do you mean? It’s gold. You can’t tell me it ain’t gold.”

  “Aw, it’s gold all right,” McAllister said. “But it ain’t Spanish gold.”

  Seventeen

  The old man stood stunned. Either McAllister’s information took him by surprise because he didn’t think McAllister would know it wasn’t Spanish, or because Charlie himself had thought it Spanish.

  McAllister took the candle from his nerveless fingers and had a look around the underground chamber. On the far side was an old traveling trunk. It was unlocked, so he swung back the lid. Inside were what looked like a couple of bedrolls, small sacks and boxes of black powder, a lump of lead, bullet moulds, containers of percussion caps, some canned beef and a gunnysack of jerky. He closed the trunk and moved along the wall. A saddle hung there with what looked like several rifles tied in sacking.

  He looked around at the old man who was watching him in a forlorn kind of a way. McAllister felt a little sorry for him. In a niche in the wall were several candles. He stood one up and lit it. The extra light seemed to cheer the place a bit. “Where’d you get it, Charlie?”

  The old man looked this way and that. He might have been looking for somebody to answer for him or for a way of escape.

  “Here, Rem,” he said. His voice sounded like the rustling of dry leaves in the fall. “I swear it.”

  “How do you reckon it got here?”

  “How should I know?”

  “Maybe it belongs to somebody.”

  “Me.”

  “And Ignacio. And all the rest of ’em.”

  “Sure, sure.”

  Patiently, McAllister said: “I think some smart operator lifted this stuff and hid out here with it for some time.”

  The old man shook his head. “No. Me an’ Ignacio found it right where it’s at this minute. My word on it—a stack of Bibles. Ask Ignacio.”

  “Charlie, I ain’t no expert, but I read a few books in my time. Anythin’ I could get my hands on. A lot of folks imagine I think the way I talk—like a goddam hick. Books have pictures. I’ve seen this kind of stuff in books. It ain’t Spanish. It’s old Irish or Viking, somethin’ of that kind. My word on it—a stack of Bibles. My God, the museum mark is still on the back of one of those pieces. Just an itty-bitty piece of paper, but it gave the game away.”

  “No,” Charlie cried, “I checked …”

  His words died away. He stood there, looking stricken and betrayed. He wrung his hands like a broken-hearted old woman; his face and eyes creased up as the tears came. He saw all the years of waiting going to waste. He was too old now to …

  McAllister said softly: “Who knows, Charlie, besides you, Ignacio and me?”

  Charlie was speechless with weeping. One bony hand waved aimlessly in the still air.

  It was a good thirty minutes before the old man could speak coherently. McAllister loaded his pipe and fouled the already fouled air, waiting with the patience of an Indian. The old man sat on the floor, sniveling, his dreams gone like smoke on the wind.

  Finally, McAllister said: “Well, Charlie, we’re into this and we have to get ourselves out of it. Forget the gold for a minute. We’ll be lucky if we get ourselves out of this alive. Which one of you is in cahoots with the sheriff?”

  Charlie said in a dead voice: “Manuel, I guess. I took the beans off him. I thought he was nothin’ more’n a young fool an’ I didn’t want to be the finish of him. All these Mexes is kind of kin to me, McAllister. Hell, I never had no other.”

  “Manuel,” said McAllister. “Who’d of thought it? All right—what about the girl?”

  “God knows. I’m suspicious of everybody these days. That’s what gold does for you. I suppose you have a notion to keep it all for yourself now.”

  The suggestion took McAllister unawares.

  He looked at the question squarely and was maybe a little surprised at the answer he at once came up with.

  “No,” he said. “What would I do with a fortune in gold?”

  The old man plainly didn’t believe him. He said: “You’re crazy or a liar.” He thought a minute, then said: “Why’d you bring that Clegg along with you but to kill us and take the gold?”

  “Clegg? Hell, Clegg ain’t nothin’ to me. He broke jail with me is all and I owed him.”

  Was that really how it was? The old man had him at it now, but then McAllister had already had his thoughts about the man. He asked: “How many of you know the ins and outs of this place?”

  “Just me an’ Ignacio. Leastways, that’s what I think.”

  “What was the real reason for you bringing the Mexicans along?”

  “Like I said—so we’d be safe from Indians. And the sheriff.”

  “You knew about the sheriff?”

  “Sure. You can’t keep a secret from Mex Town.”

  “Then why me?”

  Now Charlie managed a short cackle of a laugh. “The Mexicans didn’t feel too sure about fightin’ off Apaches. They come along to guard me an’ Ignace. You come along to guard them. Sounds crazy, but it’s true. When you come to think on it, it makes sense, though. You can’t have too many guns in Apache country.”

  That was true enough and McAllister was inclined to accept it.

  McAllister pulled himself up from the box he’d been sitting on and said: “Let’s get back, Charlie.”

  Wearily, the old man scrambled to his feet. McAllister gave him back his gun and said: “You’ll maybe need this up above.” He took a candle from the wall niche and started for the exit. As he crouched down to enter it, he stopped and turned to the old man. He spoke in a whisper. ‘‘Charlie, there's somebody down here besides us.”

  Eighteen

  Charlie was silent so long that McAllister held the candle up to get a better view of him. The old man looked ghastly.

  “I knew it,” he said. “I knew it right at the start that I was goin’ to get mine this trip. My dream was never meant to come true.”

  McAllister said: “Keep your voice down. If we can hear them, they can hear us.”

  “They’ve come to murder me.”

  “Nobody’s goin’ to murder anybody,” McAllister told him. “Let’s go see who it is. Maybe we can see them before they see us. Maybe it’s only Ignacio come to gloat over the gold like you.”

  The mention of Ignacio seemed to have a bad effect on the old man.

  “Ignacio! Jesus, if it’s Ignacio …”

  McAllister asked: “Is there somethin’ I should know about him?”

  There was despair in Charlie’s voice when he said: “I don’t trust one of ’em. Not a single one. They all want to keep the gold for themselves.”

  McAllister held up a hand for silence. Sound was coming down the passage. Either somebody was pretty close or the network of tunnels was playing tricks with sound. There came a soft chink of metal on metal, followed by an indistinct murmur of voices. There were at least two men. If Ignacio was there, he would know how to come straight to this chamber. Anybody else might have to search. Unless that somebody had a gun held at the Mexican’s head.

  McAllister signed for Charlie to follow him and pushed head and shoulders into the tunnel. He started crawling, pausing every few seconds to listen. He failed to pick up a sound. He did not like it in the tunnel; it made him feel like a man buried alive. He thought all the time of how good it would be in the open air again.

  When he reached the larger tunnel, he stood up with a feeling of intense relief. Charlie came and stood beside him. McAllister laid a hand on his arm as a sign for complete silence. His sharp ears failed to pick up the smallest sound. He signed for the old man to go ahead. Charlie started off down the tunnel, pushing ahead in a shuffling run. They reached the first junction with the old man badly out of breath. He l
istened and blinked owlishly in the candlelight. He picked out the tunnel-mouth he wanted and hurried down it. McAllister reckoned they were making too much noise. His nerves were starting to tighten and he held himself ready the whole time to blow his light out and hit the floor. They found another junction and changed directions again. In spite of the changes of direction, McAllister had a rough idea of the area immediately overhead. He had always been good on directions and distances.

  He knew when they should have been in sight of the light above the flight of steps. He quickened his pace, caught Charlie and held him back.

  “Charlie,” he said, “you didn’t take the wrong turning, did you?”

  “I never did that not in all my life.”

  “Then where’s the light?”

  Charlie’s head twisted this way and that as he looked ahead, back at McAllister and ahead again. It was as if he were coming out of shock.

  “Oh my God,” he said. “The bastards. They shut us in here. We’re buried alive.”

  McAllister pushed past him and reached the steps. He climbed them and reached the great flat rock that blocked their exit. He pushed against it, but to no avail. He could see a bright chink of light to one side, but could see nothing of the outside. He had a kind of sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. Descending the steps he asked himself what the point could be in shutting Charlie and him in with the gold? He didn’t find an answer. At the bottom, Charlie was looking lost.

  “Is there any other way out of here?” McAllister asked.

  “Other way out?” The old man was blinking furiously. He seemed to be a little out of his mind. “Of course, there’s another way. Any number of ways.”

  “Where do they come out?”

  The old man thought. “You can come out in the tunnel that brought us into the canyon. You can come out high above the way we come down in. Or you can end up on the hills to the east of the canyon. Take your pick.”

  “Would Ignacio know these ways?”

  “It’s likely.”

  The closure of the tunnels suggested that whoever had been in them had now left. But McAllister knew that he would have to act on the assumption that they had stayed here and still constituted a danger to him.

  “Which is the quickest to reach?”

  “The entrance to the canyon.”

  “All right. We’ll go there.”

  Without another word, Charlie led the way. Now, as they walked, cocooned by the light from their candles, McAllister had the curious feeling the he was being watched. When they reached the first junction, Charlie chose the center tunnel, which puzzled McAllister. His bump of location told him that they should have taken the right-hand passageway. However, after they had covered a short distance, the floor dropped away before them and McAllister knew that they were passing below the other tunnel.

  Suddenly, Charlie stopped so abruptly that McAllister cannoned into him.

  McAllister saw what had stopped the old man. Ahead of them the tunnel curved. McAllister knew this because he could see candlelight flickering on the wall. Either somebody held that candle or it had been set there as a trap. Moths died in candlelight. That single candle, stood on the floor of the tunnel, could be as effective as an iron barrier set there in keeping Charlie and McAllister from passing it. On the other hand …

  He put his mouth close to Charlie’s ear and whispered: “Any way we can by-pass that light?”

  “Not without going back to the junction.”

  McAllister thought. They didn’t have all the time in the world. They would have to take a risk. He told Charlie to follow him. He drew his gun and laid his thumb on the hammer for an instant shot. It was one of those moments when he could have wished that he’d stayed in bed.

  When he turned the corner, he found a short length of candle standing in a small niche in the wall. There was nobody in sight. He turned to speak to Charlie and found that he was not there. He heard an indefinable sound and the candle in the niche went out. Then his own candlelight was extinguished. The acrid smell of its wisp of smoke filled his nostrils. Something very hard struck him at the base of his skull. He felt himself pitching forward into darkness, but this time the darkness was streaked with crimson. The floor seemed to be very quick in coming up to meet him, then met his face and his mouth was full of dust.

  Nineteen

  In Spanish Ignacio said: “Kill him quickly and let’s go.”

  “No.” Charlie replied in the same language. “We’ll have to give something to the sheriff. If he has McAllister, that’ll maybe satisfy him. We’ll leave McAllister and some of the gold. He has no idea how much there is. He’ll maybe think he has it all.”

  The Mexican nodded. “Simple, but effective, I think.”

  They were in the big chamber where Charlie had shown McAllister the gold. In the corner lay McAllister, bound hand and foot, with a blanket tied over his head like a hood so that he could hear and see little.

  The two men each picked up a container of treasure. The contents of the parfleche which Charlie had emptied earlier they left lying on the ground. When the old man tried to walk, carrying his gold, he staggered. He knew that he was not going far or fast with such a burden. He could carry it no further than the exit. He would dump it there and bring a burro or two to it. He did not think beyond that because he dared not. His plan was in fragments. He and Ignacio were back where they started, toting the gold out of the hills on their own. What had seemed so simple was now so complicated that he could not see his way through it. His old brain was tired.

  He started for the entrance and saw Ignacio stooped under his burden. Ignacio was his next problem. He had never trusted his partner and he trusted him less now.

  He stopped when he found his way barred by the tall figure which cast monstrous shadows. For a moment, old Charlie gawped, thrown off balance.

  “What in hell’re you doin’ here?” he said.

  The man was dressed in rough range clothes. In his hands he carried a Spencer carbine. He looked like he did not carry it from habit, but with purpose.

  “I’m here for the same reason you are, Charlie. And the Mex there. I’m here for the gold.”

  Ignacio could see death in the man’s eyes. He had been in the revolutionary army below the border when he and his comrades had been rounded up by the lancers. The lancer captain, son of a Mexico City rico, had that look in his eyes when he condemned every fifth man to death—just for starters.

  The Mexican said: “Let us be practical, Clegg. There is enough here for us all.”

  Clegg laughed.

  “You’ll have to do better than that,” he said. His right hand worked the lever of the carbine. Ignacio watched the muzzle. His death was contained there.

  Even old Charlie was shocked— “Christ, Clegg, you ain’t goin’ to—”

  Clegg smiled when he said: “Aw, yes, Charlie, but I am.” And he fired. The noise of the two explosions, one after the other, was deafening in the confined space. The little Mexican was flung across the chamber, he staggered back against the wall and then fell forward on to his face.

  Another figure burst from the shadows, thrust its way past Clegg and stared down at the prostrate figure of the Mexican with horror.

  “My God,” Manuel cried, “why did you do this?” He seemed to have difficulty in taking his gaze from his dead kinsman to stare at Clegg. Then he shifted his attention to old Charlie who stood limp and thunderstruck. It had all happened so quickly. As he watched Charlie’s face, he saw the realization come. The old man knew he was going to die.

  Clegg was watching him too, as if the sight of an old man about to die was of some clinical interest to him.

  “So there was gold after all, old man,” Clegg said. “I never thought you was lyin’. A lot of fellers owe me drinks now.” Charlie said falteringly: “You mean this was all planned?”

  “The whole kit and caboodle. You been suckered, Charlie, but good.”

  Manuel was shaking his head slowly from side to
side in a kind of crazy, heartbroken way. The killing of Ignacio was too much for him to take in. When this had started, he saw himself with money and power, but he did not see himself with a dead kinsman lying bloody in front of him.

  “So think about it, Clegg,” Charlie was saying. “It ain’t no-never-mind cuttin’ down a Mex, but, hell, you kill a whiteman … you’ll hang, Clegg. The sheriff’s headed this way right this minute.”

  “We fixed it,” said Clegg, “so Southern will find this place without no trouble.”

  “You mean you’re in with Southern?”

  Manuel said: “You shut your mouth, Charlie. Remember? I’m one of those Mexes who is no-never-mind. Knock the old fool off, Jack. Nobody don’t need him.”

  “I was your family’s friend,” Charlie said. His voice was pleading now. “You ain’t a bad boy, Manuel. You’re just in bad company. You save me, Manuel. Do somethin’, for God’s sake.”

  Manuel said: “Do it, Clegg, and let’s get this gold out of here.”

  “No,” Charlie said.

  Clegg’s gaze fell on McAllister’s still form.

  “Who’s that yonder?” he asked.

  “McAllister,” Charlie said.

  That amused Clegg. He laughed again. He was getting a lot of laughs today. He walked over to McAllister, fumbled one-handed with the knots that tied the rope holding the blanket around the prisoner’s head and pulled it off. He stared into McAllister’s dark, still eyes. They were so deadly that for a brief moment Clegg was unaccountably abashed. But he regained his composure. This was his day. He said: “If it ain’t old Rem. Hell, old Rem, it sure do look like somebody settled your hash good. Ain’t life a real son-of-a-bitch? Here’re you hog-tied by the feller that hired you, double-dealed by the feller that you busted out of jail. There just ain’t nothin’ in all this for you, friend. Less than nothin’. You’re as dead as last week’s mutton. Old Southern is sure goin’ to stretch that neck of yourn into the great hereafter.”

  “Clegg.”

  Manuel screamed his name.

  Clegg whirled to see the Mexican sprawled on the ground and Charlie’s heels disappearing into the tunnel. Clegg crossed the chamber with long strides. Into the tunnel, he yelled: “Come back, you old fool, you ain’t goin’ nowhere.”