‘Not close enough,’ said McAllister, rising. ‘You just sit tight, Mr Chalmers, and leave everything to me. Tell me, would you like to buy a share in my stud, Caesar?’
The banker looked a little surprised, but smiled amiably and said: ‘How would a couple of hundred dollars sound?
‘Like sweet music,’ said McAllister. ‘Three hundred would sound even sweeter.’
When he walked from the house ten minutes later after a few courteous words to Mrs Chalmers in the hall, he had forgotten about the range war and was happily telling himself that he now had the thousand dollars for his entry in the race. Mrs Chalmers told her husband: ‘What a charming man the sheriff is, Landon.’
The banker said: ‘First-rate man, McAllister.’
The first-rate man walked a short way along Howard and entered a rooming house. This was where Doan Billington, Landon Chalmer’s chief clerk, stayed. The house was, incidentally, the same one in which Mole Trusty, Cam Brennan’s sidekick and fellow-villain, was nursing his wounded body back to health. The bank teller lived in a poor room on the third floor. He was surprised and a little alarmed to see the sheriff filling his doorway. His first words were: ‘Is something wrong, sheriff?’
‘Wrong as hell, Doan,’ said McAllister. He found a chair and told the teller about it.
Billington was a dull man in his mid-thirties. His wage was a small one, for Chalmers was an unwise and parsimonious boss, and he saw no prospect of ever having enough money to get married on. Not surprisingly, he did not love Landon Chalmers. He fitted McAllister’s bill admirably. He listened carefully to what McAllister had to say. When he was through talking, McAllister said: ‘Tell me whether you’re in or out, Doan. If you’re out, we’ll just forget we ever had this conversation.’
‘I’d like to help, sheriff,’ the man said, looking at McAllister out of his watery and discouraged eyes, ‘but my job with Chalmers is a job, even though it isn’t much of one. Where else would I find work around here?’
‘No call to fret about that,’ said McAllister. ‘I have friends all over. If we can’t find you something, I’ll be surprised. Hell, you could start up on your own with your knowledge of books and accounts. Pretty soon I’ll need somebody to keep an eye on the business side of the horses. There’s ranches, the freighting business ... A little enterprise and some talking around and you could have a great future here.’
The man looked at him wonderingly. ‘You make it all sound so easy.’
‘Nothing’s easy, but everything’s a lot of fun,’ said McAllister.
Billington looked a little scandalized at the thought of life being fun. He said recklessly: ‘I’ll do it. By God, for once in my life I really will do something. But hold hard a minute. It seems a bit like treachery, sheriff. I mean, he is my boss, and I owe something to him.’
‘Your duty, Doan,’ said McAllister with appropriate solemnity, ‘is to the people.’
That seemed to inspire Billington. His watery eyes grew bright. ‘I’ll do it.’
‘Good man.’ They shook on it, and Doan Billington felt for a moment as if he stood as tall as the sheriff.
McAllister went down one floor and walked in on Mole Trusty.
Mole sat up in bed and yelped: ‘What the hell is this?
‘This,’ McAllister said, ‘is the sheriff. And he’s telling you that you have till the morning stage to get yourself out of town.’
‘Now, wait a minute—’
‘I don’t have a minute, and if I did, you would not have it, Mole. Just git and stay gitted. You pass the word to Cam Brennan and I’ll have you in jail so fast you won’t have time to shout for a lawyer.’
He walked out, and Mole looked a little weepy. After all, when a fellow had a knife thrust in him he wanted a little sympathy and understanding, not prevarication. And what about his big plans with Cam? My God, old Cam was going to be fit to be tied.
When McAllister walked in on Lennie Wallach, the newspaperman was setting type in a lather of sweat.
‘This is no way to run a newspaper,’ he said. ‘I never knew Debbie did so damned much around here. I have a lulu of a story. I’ve written up the pressures of the coming horserace. We’ll have the enthusiasts of six counties here before I’m through, Rem. Black Horse will put up a golden plaque to me.’
‘You ain’t heard nothing yet,’ said McAllister. ‘I’ll tell you all about it. And I’ll tell you what’s going to happen in the next week. Are you ready?’
Lennie dropped everything, found pencil and paper and took his position at his desk. ‘Give me a headline.’
McAllister said: ‘How about BANKER BETRAYS CATTLEMEN COLLEAGUES?’
Lennie laid down his pencil and stared at McAllister. ‘Is this true bill, Rem?’
‘Did I give you any different?’
‘Can’t say you ever did. I always suspected that son-of-a-bitch … We’re wasting time. Get talking.’
McAllister got talking.
When he was through at Lennie’s office, McAllister angled across the street to the saloon. He found Mark Tully pretty busy. There were a number of strangers in town. They were all talking about the race. A Casper man had come in with a horse he said would walk the race and leave everything else standing. There were a lot of bets being made.
McAllister leaned across the bar and said: ‘Mark, I need a friend who has a fair amount of sand, knows how to use a gun and ain’t too troubled by ethics. I can’t think of anybody fits that description better than you.’
Tully snarled: ‘Then you’d best get to thinking, because I don’t budge from behind this bar.’
‘Won’t take you any more than a couple of days.’
‘I’m holding the stakes for the race, I’m watching the newspaper office and I have more trade than I can handle. Have a heart, Rem.’
‘I’m real short on hearts, Mark.’
‘Aw, hell, don’t this take the goddam biscuit.’
‘Don’t it just.’ McAllister turned away from the bar and said over his shoulder: ‘I’m pulling out from my place in one hour.’
‘You’re going to be mighty lonesome.’
Charlie Stellino was alone. When he was drinking seriously he always drank alone. That was a sure sign with Charlie. McAllister said: ‘Charlie, you look down in the mouth.’
‘It’s on the floor,’ Charlie said.
‘I have something that’ll cheer you up.’
‘Nobody has that. Only money could cheer me up.
‘Fifty dollars says you’re a posseman as of this minute.’
Charlie perked up. ‘It does? The country don’t have fifty dollars and you know it.’
‘I have fifty dollars.’
‘When did you ever have fifty dollars?’ He looked suspicious. ‘What does a posseman have to do for fifty dollars?’
‘Nothing very terrible, but I ain’t too sure it’s strictly legal.’
‘I could of bet on it. How long does it take?’
‘Couple of days.’
‘Consider me swore in.’
‘My place in one hour, well-horsed and fully armed.’
McAllister had one worry right at the front of his mind. Just supposing Cam Brennan decided to knock Lennie Wallach before the race? He did not like it, but he reckoned that was a gamble he would have to take. He walked to the livery and got his horse.
When he reached his place, he found Bella in his kitchen making apple pies. He said: ‘Bella, if you could rustle up a steak inside of five minutes I could see my way clear to forcing down one of those apple pies of yours.’
She went to give him a sharp answer, but she turned and saw his face. ‘Something wrong,’ she said.
‘Could be,’ he said. ‘Bella, can you loan me your man for a couple of days?’
‘He work for you, Miz Rem—’
‘His wages don’t cover this kind of thing, Bella.’
She gazed at him steadily. She knew that McAllister could have gone to Mose without consulting her and Mose would have said ‘yes’ str
aight out. She said: ‘You think I can’t say no, but I can. I swear I can.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘I thought you’d likely say no. Like you should. Just rustle that steak, Bella.’
She said: ‘Is it the Association, Miz Rem? Can’t you get nobody but Mose to go out again them?’
‘Mark Tully and Charlie Stellino. There’s nobody else I’d trust but Mose.’
She said: ‘All right, just this once. Mose had enough danger in his life.
‘I’ll see he isn’t in any more danger than he has to be.
‘Mose’ll do what he got to do like anybody else.’
When Mark Tully and Charlie Stellino walked in the kitchen, they found McAllister and Mose Copley eating their steaks at the table and Bella told them to sit down and she would feed them. They saw the apple pies. Mark said: ‘You didn’t say anything about Bella’s apple pies, McAllister, or I shouldn’t have bellyached.’
Charlie Stellino made for the table like a starving man. Four well-fed men stepped into their saddles a half-hour later. It was full dark. Bella and Lige came into the yard to wish them luck. Lige said: ‘You should ought to tote me along with you, boss. You want somebody to hold the horses, don’t you?’ Bella tartly told him to hush up. Mose told his son to look out for the horses and not to waste his time fooling around.
They rode straight out across the valley with Charlie leading their pack mule, a big Sonora animal well laden with their supplies, which included enough powder and lead to fight a war with. McAllister had said: ‘If I have my way, there won’t be a shot fired,’ but the other two men, though they did not say so, thought this was idle talk. They knew the kind of men they were going up against. If ten Texas hardcases walked away from a fight without firing a shot, they did not know Texas men.
‘Texas men ain’t going to take too kindly to being braced by a black man, boss,’ Mose said.
McAllister’s reply to that was: ‘Mose, they ain’t going to take kindly to being braced a-tall.’
They hit a brisk trot and kept to it right across the comparatively flat land of the valley floor. When they got into the hills it was trot, walk and trot again. At midnight they halted and gave the horses a breather. At dawn, by which time they would have gone their full distance, they wanted them with plenty Of starch in them. McAllister knew that four men were never better mounted. He rode Oscar, Mark Tully was on a racy-looking sorrel, Charlie Stellino rode a horse of Spanish conformation, which he swore by for bottom and a quick turn of speed, while Mose was up on Sally. Mose liked the mare, and the mare liked Mose.
‘You reckon they’ll have a guard out, Rem?’ Mark asked.
‘My bet is they won’t,’ McAllister replied, ‘but we’ll act like they have. We’re making good time. We’ll be in position an hour before dawn.’
He knew these hills well, better for sure than anybody among the enemy. He led them unerringly through high timber and halted in the middle of what appeared to be a dense forest. He said: ‘We walk from here. Lead your horses and make it quiet.’
They walked for five minutes before he halted again.
‘Time for a smoke and a leak,’ he said.
They tied their horses. When they were ready to move again, McAllister said: ‘Just a thought. There could be men here we know. If anybody lets sentiment get in his way, I shall frown upon him.’
Mark Tully: ‘Just so it ain’t a blood-bath.’
McAllister said: ‘Who wants a blood-bath, for God’s sake? If we’re sensible and they’re sensible, everything should go nicely.’
They walked through the trees one behind the other, with McAllister in the lead. Mose Copley brought up the rear. He kept a sharp eye on their back-trail. He had been a Union infantryman during the war. To him, the Texans up ahead were rebels. Nothing personal, but he knew a natural enemy when he saw one, though McAllister and Tully were Texas men. When McAllister halted ten minutes later, they were in sight of the line shack which stood on the shoulder of the hill. They could see the mountains rolling away beyond it. The whole scene was pale blue with distance. The wind sang softly through the trees and the tall grass bent before it. McAllister turned and signed to them without speaking, pointing to the positions they should take up. He left an escape route downhill. He did not want anybody being cornered and inspired to fight to the death. He did not want one bit of death here. The local bravos may have spilled blood, but these professional recruits had not as yet been blooded. His ideal was for them to depart hurriedly, unsoiled and unheroic.
The three other men scattered to their positions on the edge of the trees. There was a deadfall to one side of the shack. Charlie Stellino bellied his way through the long grass and took up a position behind it. McAllister hunkered down behind the bole of a large pine. He jacked a round into his old Henry rifle and waited. He knew that he would not have to wait long. In this high chill air, men’s bladders woke them in good time.
Five minutes after their arrival and when full dawn lay over the land, the door of the shack opened and a man stepped shivering into the open. He was a tall lank man who shrank at the impact of the cold air. He had on his socks, a pair of levis, shotgun chaps and his longjohns. He hawked and scratched, spat and then ran on tiptoe for the deadfall. He was now on the blind side of the cabin. He started to urinate, and when he was in the middle of it, Charlie appeared from behind the deadfall and pointed his Spencer repeater at him.
The man said: ‘Jesus.’ Charlie said something to him that McAllister did not catch and pointed uphill to McAllister. The man, who had ceased to urinate, now continued, tidied himself and walked with slumped shoulders up the hill. He took one look at McAllister and said wearily: ‘I heard you was in this neck of the woods, Rem.’
This was Eddie Price, who had been McAllister’s deputy when he was town marshal down in Crewsville, Arizona.
‘Nothing personal, you understand, Eddie,’ McAllister said. ‘Just earning my keep.’
‘Sure,’ said Price. ‘Thank God I got paid last night, or I’d sure have to cut my losses this trip.’
‘I’m happy for you, Ed. Sit over there against that tree and I’ll tie you to it.’ Mark Tully came through the trees with a rope in his hands. When he saw Price, he rolled his eyes to heaven and said: ‘I might of known. How are you, Ed?’
Price said: ‘I was doing all right till you bastards turned up.’
Tully asked: ‘Is Frank with you?’
Price said: ‘Yep.’ He chuckled briefly. ‘I got to see his face when he sees you.’ McAllister shared his sentiments. Frank was Mark Tully’s younger brother.
Tully said: ‘I told him to be careful of the company he keeps.’
McAllister said: ‘Gag Eddie, Mark. You know how he likes to open his mouth.’
‘Trust me, Rem,’ Price said. ‘I’ll keep still.’
‘Like hell I’ll trust you,’ said McAllister.
Price opened his mouth for his warning yell and Mark Tully hit him once with the barrel of his belt-gun. The gunman sank to the ground. Tully said with quiet regret: ‘The damn fool. If young Frank gives me any sass, I’ll kick his butt from here to Caspar.’
They heard the shack door open again and turned towards the building. A young fellow in his longjohns stood there shivering. Tully said: ‘There he is now.’ The boy came on tiptoe, like Price, round the shack and stopped. He called out: ‘Eddie, where you at?’ Then he gave up and ran for the deadfall. As soon as he started to urinate, Charlie made his appearance again with his Spencer and said: ‘Frank, big brother wants you up yonder. Be a good boy now or I’ll blow you all over Montana.’
Mark Tully stepped out from behind a pine and called softly: ‘Come on up here, you stupid little sonovabitch, and rustle your hocks.’
When young Frank Tully stood shivering in front of his brother, he said: ‘I don’t believe it.’
Mark said: ‘This ain’t the first time I’ve saved your life, Frankie. Sit down with your back to that tree and stay still or I’ll bust your head like I
did Eddie’s.’
Frank said: ‘My God, don’t you have any family feeling?
‘A heap of it,’ said Mark. ‘I’m doing this for your own good. Now get over there. Two down. That means eight to go. Is there eight left in there, Frank?’
‘Go to hell,’ said his brother.
Mark said: ‘Don’t get nasty, kid, or I’ll take the back of my hand to you.’
‘Gag him,’ said McAllister. ‘Maybe verbal diarrhea runs in the family.’
The third man to come out of the shack broke the pattern. He was fully dressed in levis and a faded blue hickory shirt, but he lacked a gun. He rolled a smoke and looked at the morning, lit up and strolled round the end of the shack. Here he halted to gaze this way and that, as if he wondered where the other two had gone. He did not call. Still acting casually, he turned and started back for the door.
McAllister said softly: ‘Mark, he smells a rat.’
It seemed that the words were hardly out of his mouth when Tully pulled the butt of his carbine into his shoulder and fired. The bullet hit the door with a hollow and resounding thud. McAllister followed with another shot, and Tully let go a third. Tully yelled: ‘Keep away from the shack.’ The man understood the message. They could have killed him and they had not. All the bullets had landed between him and the shack door. He kept walking and angled away from the house.
‘Head this way,’ McAllister bellowed. The man obligingly turned uphill. That was the best part of dealing with men who lived by guns – they fully understood what a gun could do. The fellow came up into the trees with his hands high above his head. He was a shortish man, square set and strong. His face was hard and his eyes harder. When he saw McAllister and Tully, he said: ‘My word, that’s the end of this trip.’
McAllister shouted across to Mose Copley: ‘Open up, Mose.’
From the other side of the shack, Mose began to shoot. Charlie Stellino followed his example. Together they poured fire in through the two windows of the shack. They could hear the bullets bouncing and ricocheting inside the building. Not a single shot was returned. When Mark and McAllister had tied their last customer to the tree, without bothering to gag him, they started to shoot down at the shack. Pretty soon, the four rifles were empty, and they all stopped to reload.
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