The other man suddenly lurched to one side, clutching himself with both hands. He said softly: ‘Oh, my God.’ Then he seemed to lose his footing on the steep bank, and fell into the water.
Trusty saw that his horse was standing in mid-stream, looking back to see what all the commotion was about. Trusty jumped into the water, so close to the floundering man that the fellow could have reached out and caught him, and waded to his horse. He climbed into the saddle and turned it in the same movement, kicking his heels into its belly and shouting to it. The horse scrambled through the shallows and started up the steep bank.
The man in the water shouted: ‘Hold it right there or you’re dead.’
Trusty lashed at the horse with the rein ends. Behind him, he heard the loud report of the gun. It seemed an age before something hit him in the back and drove him forward over the animal’s neck.
By the time the second shot came, Trusty and the horse were over the top of the bank and into the willows. They came out on to the trail and the horse ran freely, going west at a fast clip.
‘Jeez,’ said Trusty to himself, ‘that was a close one.’
He wondered if the man had recognized him. He also wondered how badly the shot in the back would affect him. It would not be the first time he had taken lead on board and it did not worry him unduly. He was still functioning, so it could not be too bad. But he could not afford to ride back into Black Horse with a bullet hole in him and blood all over his clothes. He had aroused enough suspicion in the livery owner by hiring a horse at night.
Though glad to be alive, Trusty was put out. So far he had been able to accomplish very little for his partnership with Brennan. Except maybe that he had recognized the man who attacked him. A man like Trusty did not forget a face, and never a face belonging to a detective of Rutter’s caliber. The man was efficient and ruthless. He was. Trusty considered, as big a villain as the villains he pursued. But, knowing that he was dealing with a man like Rutter, he got a good measure of the game he was playing. He hoped that the man would not put two and two together too successfully and discover his connection with Brennan. On the whole, he thought that this incident had been a most unwelcome one.
Now, he tried to think of a way that he could leave the horse at the livery without being seen to be wounded. In this, he had the luck of the devil. A light rain started and he shrugged himself, rather stiffly and painfully, into his slicker. That should do the trick.
Twenty-Three
Charlie Stellino brought the news into town that the Swedish family had been burned out, and a couple of hours later they came in themselves, piled into a wagon with what few odds and ends they had been able to save. The man, Landstrom, seemed to be too dazed to realize what had happened to him. The woman and her two small daughters were taken in by Bertha Robertson, the doctor’s wife. Johnny Landstrom said to McAllister: ‘What did I do wrong, Mr McAllister? I claim the land. It is legal.’ There was nothing that McAllister could say to that. He knew the cattlemen’s association were trying him out for size. If he sat still under this one, inside a month they would be walking all over him.
Charlie Stellino said: ‘Swear in a posse, Rem, and let’s hunt down the bastards that did this.’
Mark Tully leaned on his bar and said: ‘For once in his misbegotten life he’s right, Rem. Swear in a goddam army if you have to. If you don’t stop this right now it’ll take over like the plague.’
The town was alarmed and indignant. Lennie Wallach rushed out a special single-sheet edition and he wrote it in vitriol.
At noon that day an old man came into town riding a mustang and leading a mule packed with prospector’s gear. He sought out McAllister, who knew him of old. This was Dad Greggson, a hill-nutty from way back. McAllister bought him a drink and the old man talked. He had just come across the valley. Yesterday he had stopped off at Twenty Mile, which was a way station for the stage line. He had seen ten men get off the stage. They joined another ten already there. Fresh horses were waiting for them. They had a meal, then mounted and rode off. It was, he said, like watching a company of soldiers moving out.
‘And that’s what they was, Rem,’ said Greggson, ‘they was soldiers.’
‘Did they wear uniform?’
‘Naw. I mean they was fighting men. Armed to the teeth. Every man with a repeater.’
McAllister thanked him for the information. He knew that it was a piece of real luck that the old man spotted them. He told Mark Tully that he was going out to the Mittelhouse place. Mark said to watch out for the beautiful widow – he’d heard she was a man-eater.
McAllister went to the Running M via his own place, which was on the road. Mose was putting Lige through his paces on Caesar, and the stud was working well. Watching the boy up on him, McAllister wondered if the race would ever come off, or if the country would explode before them. He knew that his own actions from here on would be crucial to the situation. It seem ridiculous to think that the actions of one man could affect the future and the nature of the whole Black Horse country. Though maybe that was making it a little too strong. There were other men to be considered who had not come into the picture yet. There were the nester leaders and the men who made up what the cattlemen referred to as the ‘cow-thieves’, the small shirt-tail cow outfits who ran small bunches of cattle in the foothills and the breaks. But that was the whole point, he wanted to settle this thing before they did come into the picture. Of one thing he was sure -they would not be organized as the cattlemen were, already with their association and what looked to McAllister like a commander-in-chief in post. The last possibility he wished to avoid was a strong force on one side meeting a strong force on the other. That would mean a blood bath. Though the idea of a strong party in the employ of the cattlemen’s association falling on the nesters and sheepmen to the east was too horrible to contemplate. The cattle kings must have a hell of a lot of confidence in their political influence in the territory even to contemplate such a move. If old Greggson’s report was right, and he did not see why it should not be, then they must be already making that drastic move.
As he watched the boy working the stallion, McAllister’s mind was on anything but the horse and the race which would mean so much to him financially. It was with those twenty heavily-armed men deploying to their positions. Already, they might be shooting and putting farms to the torch. As he rode on across the valley, his eyes searched for the tell-tale smoke.
He circled through the hills to the east so that he could stop at the stage line’s way station on the Casper trail. He took both his favorite horses with him, Sally and Oscar, not only because he wanted speed without over-riding a horse, but he wanted the exercise for Oscar. The horse was going to have a hard run if he was to carry McAllister’s weight over the whole course of the race.
He reached the way station before noon and found there Jesse Hyman, who ran the place, with his wife Ada and his roustabout. Jesse Hyman considered himself neither on one side nor the other and spoke freely. His wife supported his statement. He corroborated old Greggson’s story. Ten men had come in on two stages. They had slept overnight here and had been joined the following day by ten more. He agreed that it was a curiously public way in which to bring the men in, but there it was. They had been, he thought, mainly Texans, tough and tight-lipped men, all gun-hands in his opinion. They seemed to enjoy what they were doing. A lot of them seemed to know each other, and they were all agreed that they were on to a good thing. Easy work and high pay. They treated the whole business as something of a lark.
As McAllister headed through the hills to the Mittelhouse ranch he told himself: I’ll give the bastards larks. But he did not think it with any confidence. Twenty experienced gunfighters was something he had not faced before. The only possible saving factor in the situation was the old truth that twenty good ones were not necessarily twenty times as good as one good one. They were apt to get in each other’s way.
McAllister found Mittelhouse subtly changed but could not say in wh
at way. The two ladies were on the gallery with him, and he seemed to be interrupting something they were all enjoying. The two girls gave him a bright welcome, even the quiet Miss Harris, but McAllister had a lot on his mind and somehow the pretty girls were two too many for him to take in. He asked for a private word with Mittelhouse.
‘No secrets here, McAllister,’ Mittelhouse said jovially. ‘Go ahead.’
McAllister had never seen the man in such a mood and he thought: Either she’s agreed to marry him or she’s sharing her bed with him.
He said: ‘This concerns the Cattlemen’s Association and the burning of the Swede’s place.’
That took the grin off the man’s face. He gave Rosa Claythorn an uneasy glance and said: ‘Come on in.’ Once in the big living-room, he said fairly amicably: ‘Drink?’
‘I’m damned if I don’t,’ McAllister said, and they stood a moment later face to face with glasses in their hands. McAllister raised his glass and shot the amber liquid down his throat. Anything would be welcome after Tully’s ferocious firewater, but this was superb.
‘I have it shipped personally from Scotland,’ Mittelhouse said.
My God, you would, McAllister thought. He said: ‘There’s a blood bath about to start in this country, Mittelhouse, and what you and I say here and now is going to stop it or make it happen.’
The man looked a little sick, but he said firmly enough: ‘I’m listening.’
McAllister was aware that everything he said would probably be relayed back to headquarters. He thought of all the powerful men siding with Mittelhouse, and knew that if he could separate just this man from the rest, he would have attained something.
‘I’ll give it to you straight,’ he said. ‘Public opinion has it that Wallach has been sniping at you in his paper because you’re his main enemy. You represent the cattlemen around here. You’re just about the biggest, and that kind of makes some sort of sense. So it was natural that when a hired gun came into Black Horse all set to murder Wallach, everybody thought it was you who hired him.’
Mittelhouse’s surprise and puzzlement were genuine. Any fool could have seen that. ‘That’s not true,’ he said. ‘And I suspect you don’t believe it, or you wouldn’t be here.
‘Let’s say I have an open mind.’
‘Let’s say that. So go ahead.’
‘Now, two things have happened that make it look like Wallach is right and you’re the villain of the piece.
‘What?’
‘The Swede’s house was fired while he and his family were inside. Folks don’t take kindly to that kind of thing. Landstrom’s place stands on what you claim as your range.
‘That doesn’t mean to say it was burned by me and my men.’
‘Landstrom described some of the men,’ McAllister said. ‘It sounds as if there were some of your men there.’
‘I swear that I did not authorize the action.’
‘I believe you. But you must have known it was taking place.’
‘I did not know about it till afterwards. My word on it.
‘Did you protest to the men who ordered it?’
‘I don’t know who ordered it.’
‘And how about the twenty armed men that have just been brought into the country?’
‘Twenty armed men? I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
McAllister spelled it out for him, and when he had, Mittelhouse sat down abruptly, frowning. He said: ‘I suppose you want me to make some large and handsome gesture that’ll show the rest of the Association that I am not with them. Hell, McAllister, I don’t know enough of what’s going on to take a stand on anything.’
McAllister said: ‘How about making a start by roping in the members of your crew who took part in the burning of Landstrom’s place?’
‘I fired them when I heard what they did,’ Mittelhouse told him.
‘Do you know where they are now?’
‘In Black Horse, I imagine. Or headed that way.’
‘Their names?’
‘Lew Brody and Steve Tranter.’
McAllister said: ‘Thanks.’ He went to turn away, but thought of something, and added: ‘Just how’re you going to make out in this, Mittelhouse? How does a big rancher like you not burn out nesters and survive?’
Mittelhouse smiled. ‘That’s a good question, McAllister. Maybe we can come to some agreement. I daresay cow country will think I’m weak and shouldn’t be in the business, but it don’t make sense to me to hang and burn for the sake of a few acres. I must learn to make out with fewer acres, to organize so that I can survive without free range. There are other ways of feeding cows than on public domain grass. I think the real choice is between guns and brains. The free range advocates want to make their money the easy way.’
McAllister said: ‘The cattle kings’ll tell you they’re defending a way of life.’
‘Ways of life change. The buffalo and the Indian have nearly gone. Free range will go. What we have to watch out for is the chance that the West will go.’
There was something about the way Mittelhouse said that which struck a chord in McAllister. He shuddered mentally. He realized suddenly that he and this man shared the same feeling for the country. The discovery surprised and encouraged him.
He said: ‘I ain’t too partial to admitting I’m wrong, Mittelhouse, but I was sure as hell wrong about you.’
Mittelhouse said ironically: ‘Sometimes you can sound like a patronizing son-of-a-bitch, McAllister.’
McAllister grinned. ‘So my best friends all tell me,’ he said.
Out on the gallery, he walked into the direct gaze of two pairs of female eyes. He gave them both his best smile as he walked to his horses. As he rode off, Miss Harris lifted her hand in a small wave. She turned to find Rosa Claythorn watching her.
‘May, dear,’ Rosa said, ‘I do declare you looked at that man positively indecently.’
Miss Harris looked her in the eye and said: ‘That’s probably because my thoughts were not those becoming of a young lady.’
‘May,’ said Mrs Claythorn, ‘I’ve noticed a great change has come over you lately.’
Miss Harris said rather airily: ‘I think it’s the effect of the West, dear.’
Back at Black Horse, McAllister handed his two horses over to the mayor and told him to give them a good rub down and a bait of com. Then he hurried to the saloon and found Mark Tully presiding there. He asked him about the two men, Brody and Tranter. Mark said, sure, they were drinking over in the corner there, but hadn’t he better get along to his office? McAllister asked why he should go to the office, and Mark said: ‘Because your two birds have flown, friend.’
McAllister said a naughty word and: ‘I suppose nobody lifted a finger to stop them. I have the weakness of not being able to be in two places at once.’
‘Well,’ said Mark, ‘I doubt you could have done much about it if you’d been here, Rem. Not without getting yourself as full of holes as a fishnet. There were a dozen riders here, all armed with repeaters.’
‘Anybody you knew among them?’
‘One or two. Lon Dewley. Claud Baines. They looked like Texas men.’
McAllister walked over to the two men in the corner. The two of them were young and they looked both apprehensive and aggressive. One, Steve Tranter, was a red-head and he looked appropriately ready to flare. Lew Brody, slightly older than his partner, looked as if he could handle himself.
McAllister said their names politely and dropped into a chair. He looked them over for a moment to allow them to sweat a little. Then he said: ‘I’m not going to arrest you boys. In fact, I don’t really want any part of you. Just a few questions.’
Brody said: ‘Sheriff, we don’t have no quarrel with you.
‘I should damn well hope not,’ said McAllister. ‘All I want from you is the names of the men who organized the burning of the Swede’s house. Give me that and you can ride out of the country free as air.’
The red-head thrust himself half across
the table. He was so eager for action that he was shaking. Violence could only ease his tension.
‘You heard my partner, Lawman,’ he said. ‘We don’t have nothing to say.’
‘Your action didn’t sit too well with Mittelhouse,’ McAllister said.
‘He’s lily-livered,’ Tranter said. ‘He’s ducking a fight.
‘You call it a fight, burning a farmer and his family out. Christ, from what I heard of it, you nearly burned them in the cabin. A woman and two little girls. Some fight. Punks like you make me sick to the belly. Don’t you think before you do anything? So you’re fired, you both lost good jobs. If you don’t hire on with a hanging crew, you’ll be like all the other little men in this valley. Can’t you see that? You hired out to do somebody else’s dirty work.’
Tranter almost shouted: ‘You heard about loyalty to a brand, McAllister?’
McAllister said with huge disgust: ‘Loyalty to a brand my ass. You call setting a fire around a woman and kids loyalty?’
The red-head made a move, and his partner said: ‘Cool down, Steve. He’ll kill the pair of us. That’s his rep.’
Tranter said: ‘Leave me be. I ain’t afraid of no rep.’
McAllister stood up suddenly, and Tranter nearly jumped out of his boots. McAllister said: ‘All right, boys. Drink up and ride. If I catch you around here after sundown, I’ll throw you in the calaboose. Nobody would value evidence from trash like you.’
Steve Tranter made an angry exclamation. Brody went white to the mouth. McAllister said with an unpleasant smile: ‘I think most likely I’ll bring along Mr and Mrs Landstrom and the girls to have a good look at the two heroes who finished them. Two fancy-free cowboys who don’t own a stick between them, who ruined a whole family maybe for life. Boys, I hope you feel good.’
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