McAllister 3

by Matt Chisholm

  In the lobby of the hotel, they found the colonel and Tibbs, loaded for bear, Tibbs with a double-barreled shotgun, the colonel with a formidable hogleg that looked big enough to blast down the proverbial barn door. At the sight of Howie and his reinforcements, the colonel cried: “Ha! Glad to have you with me, gentlemen. Who shall go first?”

  No one had the opportunity to reply. From above them, they heard the irate and almost hysterical bellow of Edward C. Larned.

  “Billington!”

  Howie started. From the sound he knew that the door of the room above was open. McAllister must have gone. But he had not come this way. He looked around at Tibbs who cried: “McAllister has a room on the third floor.”

  Howie leapt for the stairs, determined to be the first on the scene. He wanted, more than anything, Helena to see him in his new role.

  He could hear the others panting after him. At the door of the room, he came face to face with his employer. Larned’s face was purple. The hand that pointed to the up flight of stairs looked as angry as his face—“He’s up there.”

  Howie was grateful that Larkin strode past him, gun in hand, for the stairs. The other two riders were close behind him. The colonel and Tibbs brought up the rear. The colonel was informing Tibbs what he would do to him if he shot him up the ass with that goddam scattergun.

  Howie fell in behind. Only then did he realize that he did not have a gun. Somehow it seemed too late to do anything about that. He just wanted to be seen going into the fray. Larned was shouting: “Kill him. He threatened me. He dared threaten me.”

  Then something startling happened. Something came down the stairs from above with remarkable speed and force. Howie saw that a chair had caught Larkin in the region of his face and chest. The tall man involuntarily fired his gun. The shot broke the ceiling above the sitting room door and a large dollop of plaster deposited itself on Edward C.’s head. Larkin, both alarmed and injured, lost his balance and fell back on the man behind him. This was Ollie Paddock who, no lightweight he, fell backwards on to his friend and colleague, Lewis Hollis. Lew, at the bottom of the stairs, clung for support to the newel post. He swung around this quite out of control and kicked the feet from under the colonel. The colonel went down with what must have been painful force for a man of his years. He rapped the barrel of the hogleg against the wall and it went off with the roar of a cannon. The large caliber bullet passed within an inch or so of Edward C.’s face and broke the glass of the window at the far end of the hall. Poor Harold Tibbs nearly fainted quite away from the effect of a gun being fired at so close a quarter.

  By the time they had picked themselves up and gathered their scattered faculties, the colonel and Larned, both, were fit to be tied. The colonel was not accustomed to being knocked from his feet and Larned had never before been bespattered with plaster. They raved for the blood of the offender. Tibbs hopped about yelling that the miscreant must have taken refuge in the back room of the third floor. Larned bellowed that he wanted McAllister dead. He was in so great a passion that he quite overlooked the presence of his ladies and used a naughty word. “Kill the bastard,” he cried.

  Slim Larkin was not the kind of man who accepted defeat at the hands of a chair. He picked himself up and mounted the stairs steadily, injured in pride and body. His cold fury mounted with him.

  By the time he reached the head of the stairs, he was ready to kill on sight. Bruised and battered in spirit as much as in form, the others followed him. Howie was slightly delayed. He took time out to beg Mr. Larned for a gun so he might distinguish himself properly in the service of the great man. Larned told him impatiently that there was a gun in his desk drawer. Howie ran for it.

  Larkin found the door locked. It was a flimsy door, which indicated two possibilities. It could be kicked down with ease and it could be shot through. If it could be shot through, that applied both ways. McAllister could be shot through it and so could Larkin.

  Larkin swung a heel kick at the door where the lock was inserted. The door rattled loose, but it held. Larkin knew McAllister had jammed something under the handle. He fired two shots through the door, then attacked it again. This time the whole door shattered and fell inwards. Larkin saw that McAllister had wedged a drawer from the bureau there. They all marched over the debris of the door into the room.

  There was no sign of McAllister. They all looked towards the open window.

  Larkin advanced on the window.

  A shot came from below, blew in its glass and scattered it all over Larkin. The man drew back with a curse.

  “He’s down in the yard,” he said. “He’ll have to climb out of there. We have time to catch him in the backlot. Move now.”

  Already Paddock and Hollis were heading for the door.

  Eight

  Down in the yard, McAllister coiled his rope and turned for the fence. He slung the rope and his bedroll over the fence and then jumped for the top. He caught it in both hands and hauled himself over. On the other side, he landed on his feet sure as a cat and picked up his gear. He was in a backlot. It was vacant and like all vacant lots it had been the recipient of old cans and any other trash that nobody wanted. He angled across this, thinking it might not be a bad idea to get out of town. It sounded as if there were a number of men on his heels.

  A man could be driven to shoot dangerously when faced by too many.

  He reached the alley and headed down it. He didn’t like alleys, for they could always turn out to be traps. When he heard the men pounding through the vacant lot, he thought he had better show a turn of speed. He broke into a run and came out on Morrow. In Mose Copley’s shop, the fire still glowed brightly. He ran past the entrance of the smithy, circled around it and ducked into the dark maw of the blacksmith’s barn. He was glad now that he had not loosened Oscar’s cinch. About every second was going to count.

  At the far end of the barn, he opened the small door. Then he untied Oscar’s line and led the gelding through the doorway. The horse smelled the excitement and was lively. McAllister found himself in Mose’s corral. He had not jumped the horse often, but he knew he would have to jump him now. There was no gate on the far side of the corral. He swung up into the saddle and, as he did so, he could hear the men shouting their questions at Mose. He called to Oscar and kicked him into a run. He took him in a tight circle to get him going, then pointed him at the fence. He knew this was going to be tricky, for neither he nor the horse could see much. So he prayed a little that his own nervousness would not be conveyed to the horse. As is the old rider’s saying: Fear travels down the reins.

  Oscar showed himself to be the horse McAllister thought him. He did not hesitate, but seemed to know exactly what was being demanded of him. He took that fence as if he had jumped fences every day of his life. Coming down nicely on the far side, he obeyed the touch of the line on his neck and swung to the right. He crossed the lot in a dozen jumps and turned neatly between the houses on to Main.

  Now the more reasonable side of McAllister told him to keep on going to open country and then not to stop till he had distance between himself and town. But after his coming face to face with the superiority of Larned, he was not in his most reasonable mood. He wanted to ram his little victory home, to let these men know what they were up against, to shake their morale a little further. Instead of turning left down Main and so coming safely to open country, he turned in the opposite direction and headed back for Morrow.

  They were still on the street. He could see where the moonlight and lamplight hit the metalwork of their guns. Oscar broke step handsomely as he turned and then he was at a dead run, taking McAllister straight for the men.

  It was amazing how long it took for them to realize that it was him. Not a shot came his way as he approached them, yelling like a Comanche. Most of them hastened to get out of his way, showing panic in every line. But one unfortunate was apparently rooted to the spot by the sight of man and horse coming down on him at top speed. Oscar, like the good horse he was, tried to avo
id the man at the last moment, but did not wholly succeed. His shoulder caught the fellow and knocked him off his feet as if he weighed no more than a lady’s handkerchief. Then McAllister was through and beyond, hearing the guns going off behind him.

  That ride through his enemies did a lot for him. For one thing, he was elated and, once he was clear of them, he felt like laughing out loud. The risk of it exhilarated him. Briefly, a moment like that can make a man feel like conquering the world. But great heights only too often are followed by great depths. McAllister had no sooner thought himself safely out of gunshot when something struck him in the back and knocked him down against his horse’s neck.

  Goddammit, he thought, I’m hit.

  It was not an original thought, but it was true. And there came that first little flutter of panic that every man who is hit by a bullet feels. Was he on the edge of death or had he merely been nicked? He was shocked, but he did not yet feel the pain. He was numbed. The pain would come later. He knew.

  The roan gelding held his pace, as if he knew McAllister’s life depended on him. McAllister jammed a hand under him against the saddlehorn and prised himself off the animal’s neck. He was not aware of his sudden physical weakness until Oscar swung at an angle for the bridge. That nearly took McAllister out of the saddle. He clung to the horn for dear life. When the horse slowed a little on the gradient that now faced them, he almost toppled backwards. Now Oscar reduced his pace to a straining trot, which jarred his rider badly and brought the first wince of pain. By the time they reached the flat above, McAllister had his belt unbuckled. He looped it over the saddlehorn and buckled it again. If the saddle cinches held, he would stay aboard.

  The horse slowed to a walk and McAllister was alarmed by the fact that it took him some time to get the animal to trot again. He knew then that he had been badly hit and that he was weakening fast. He drove his sluggish mind to think of somebody who could aid him at this time. But there was nobody as near to town as this. He had gotten himself into this and only he could get himself out of it. He cursed himself for being a vain fool. He looked up at the stars to see where he was heading and he wondered how far he had come. He guessed that he had passed out and Oscar had carried him on his way. He could see that the animal had stayed on the trail. McAllister at once reined around to the left and made for the closest high country. He was too near the Bar Twenty line for comfort.

  Now he faced the problem of how a man could tend to a wound in his own back. He did not know the answer to that one. This was one place where he had never been before. He chewed on the problem as he rode. Oscar’s hammering trot was getting too much to bear, so he slowed him to a walk. By now full feeling had returned to his body and the pain told him that he had been shot through the right shoulder. The thought that he might have been shot through the lung occurred to him. It did not add to his good cheer. He started calling himself a damn fool again, but after a while that seemed like a waste of time, so he stopped. He was thinking hard to find some place nearby where he could safely hole up. It did not take him long to come to the conclusion that there was nowhere.

  At the end of the next hour, he was in the hills and unhitching himself from the saddlehorn. As he prepared himself carefully for the dismount, he judged his balance and his strength wrongly and fell out of the saddle. The fall did not kill him, but it didn’t do him much good either. He realized that his brain was starting to behave strangely. He must have lost a good deal of blood by now.

  He lay on the ground, trying to summon enough strength and willpower to get up. He looked up at Oscar and knew that he dare not ease the cinches or he might never be able to tighten them again. The horse nuzzled him a little anxiously. After a while, the animal wandered off to the freshet for a drink. McAllister crawled after him and drank copiously. He fell asleep or passed out only to be awoken by the ice-cold mountain water as his face fell into it.

  He managed to stand up to take his gear down from the saddle. He dropped on the ground beside it and fumbled around until he found his clean shirt. His last. All else he owned had been burned in the cabin. Now, with enormous difficulty, he took off his jacket and shirt. By now, the backs of both were caked with blood. He reckoned he must have bled nearly white. He reached up with his left hand and felt over the top of the right shoulder. He knew then that he had been hit by a large, soft ball. He could put his finger in the hole and he thought he touched bone. He reckoned then that he was as good as dead. Men did not recover from this kind of a wound. He could not only kiss his ranch and his horses goodbye, he could do the same to life itself.

  Like goddam hell I do.

  He took his clean shirt and folded it as neatly as possible. He placed it on the ground and his reata beside it. Then he searched in his saddle pockets till he found his pitifully small bottle of whisky. He took a short pull of the liquor, then, with care and difficulty, poured the rest into the wound. He did not know he had passed out till he came to with his face in the dirt. He got himself upright again and found his small oilskin of bear fat. He had faith in bear fat. That was the Cheyenne influence. He took all this fat and stretched to place it in and over the wound. He knew the lead was still in there somewhere, but he couldn’t do anything about that. Right now he had to stop the bleeding.

  He picked up the shirt and leaned forward so that his shoulder blades were horizontal. This enabled him to place the shirt over the wound without it falling off. When he was satisfied that he had it right, he carefully reached for the reata and started to wind it around his body and over his right shoulder. There was some thirty feet of rope there, plenty to make a good strong job of it. The supple strong rawhide seemed to hold him together. Though the wound stung wildly from the whisky still, he felt a little better and started to be almost cheerful. He whistled to Oscar who had wandered off in search of good grass. The gelding came obediently with that pleased air he always wore when wanted. McAllister rose to his knees and loosened the cinches, then relented completely and struggled to remove the heavy saddle. At once, the canelo turned over and rolled.

  McAllister pulled his Navaho poncho over his head, draped his horse blanket and tarp over his legs and, with his side propped against a deadfall, fell asleep.

  He woke when he heard Oscar trumpet.

  He was surprised to find that he could stand without too much difficulty. But his shoulder was extremely painful. Once, as he moved, there was such a relentless surge of pain through the upper part of his body that it seemed to pin him there, motionless in mid-movement. When he walked out of the trees and looked down into the bed of the valley, he saw the dim line moving towards the hills in the bright moonlight. It moved almost directly towards his camp.

  He walked back to the horse with the realization that whoever was out there must be using a pretty smart tracker. To have followed him this far so quickly in this poor light he must be good. He told Oscar to stand and the horse froze. He could not have saddled any other horse at that moment. He could have managed only an animal which would be patient with his fumbling. He talked to Oscar steadily. While the horse could hear that tone, he would not stir. He managed to get the saddle-blanket folded and in place, but when he swung the saddle single-handed, hurting his shoulder in the process, he knocked the blanket on to the ground on the other side of the horse. He leaned against Oscar for a moment, stricken to immobility from the pain. He shifted the horse past the blanket and picked the blanket up. This time he had success, but he was forced to use both hands and that hurt him like hell again. He was glad that there was nobody there to witness his weakness. He tightened the cinches without too much trouble and was pretty pleased with himself. Getting his gear together with one hand tried his patience to the limit, but he did it at fair speed. Hitching it to the saddle presented several problems, but with the painful use of his right hand, he managed all right.

  Ready for the trail, he walked to the edge of the trees again and checked on the riders. They had crept considerably closer to the rocks below him while he had
been saddling up. They were too close for comfort. He would have to use his knowledge of these hills to the utmost. He walked back into the moon-shadows beneath the trees and tried a left hand reverse draw with the gun still on the left side, butt forward. He had not tried the move for several years and he was surprised at the ease with which he performed it. He knew that he could shoot with his left hand. Doing so always made him more careful with his shots and, if anything, improved his standard.

  He mounted, sat still in the saddle for a moment as a wave of pain hit him, then placed his feet in the stirrup-irons and told the horse to move out. Oscar nodded his head a few times and started off.

  McAllister had made up his mind exactly what he intended to do. First, it was imperative that a doctor should remove the lead in his shoulder and stitch him up. Most likely, too, the wound would need cleaning out. There was only one doctor within riding distance and that was Robertson in Black Horse City, as it called itself. Whether the medico could be trusted to keep his mouth shut was another matter and constituted a problem which would have to be dealt with when it arose.

  The idea of returning to town somehow appealed to a store of sardonic humor in McAllister. If he could hide his tracks satisfactorily, Black Horse might be the safest place he could be. It depended on a number of factors. The whole scheme was a gamble and McAllister knew, if he wanted to stay alive, he would have to take it. As he rode he studied the map of the country in his head, tracing out each step he would have to take, using the clock that nature had provided him with, working out how long he would have to keep out of sight of the men behind, how long he would be able to fool them that he was not returning to town. He thought of sending Oscar home on his own. He knew the horse would go back to the spot where the cabin had once stood, but a horse with a man on its back moved very differently from a riderless horse. A good tracker would spot the deception at once.