Kill McAllister Read online

  Matt Chisholm

  Kill McAllister

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 1

  The crew were all so jumpy that when they heard horses coming in the direction of the camp at least three of them reached for their guns, McAllister among them.

  Boss Harding, who cared for his cows first and his men second, said: “Any man fires a gun I’ll nail his hide on that wagon yonder.”

  They all looked at the wagon and Gus, the cook, who sheepishly put away his shot-gun. The rest of them slid sixshooters back into their holsters and waited. There wasn’t much else they could do. They all guessed that there were more than a dozen men riding in toward them and they guessed probably rightly that they were Jayhawkers. They had been expecting them for days. The instinct of every man since they had crossed the Kansas line from the Nations had been to hurry. But not Boss. He aimed to put fat on the cows that had been entrusted to his care. So he went slowly, almost letting the herd take the riders instead of the other way around. That, he said, was the way to trail cattle. And he ought to know. He had done the trip more times than any other man alive. Going through the Indian Nations they had been stopped by the Cherokees. The young Texan drovers wanting to pay their toll with bullets, but Boss wasn’t having any of that. One shot and his herd would take off. He bought the Indians’ goodwill with four beeves belonging to somebody else he had picked up on the trail.

  “Just take it easy, boys,” he said, “let me handle this.”

  He stared off into the darkness and McAllister who was behind him took the opportunity to back into the shadows of the timber in which they were camped. Somebody built up the fire so they could see what they were at.

  The horses were near now and riders loomed into the light of the fire. There were more than a dozen of them. They practically covered one side of the camp. One of them stepped down from the saddle with a creaking of leather without being invited and walked forward so the light of the fire fell full on his face.

  “Who’s the boss-man around here?” he demanded.

  Harding who hadn’t moved where he was squatting said: “I am.”

  He looked up at the Kansan, his face immobile. Harding was a small man, tough as rawhide, easy in his manner and slow to anger, the kind of man that is good with animals and men. He was in his fortieth year now, going gray around the short hairs at the temple, stooped in the shoulder and bowed in the legs. His mustache was his pride and was so large that it made his strong jaw look weak.

  The Kansan was another kind of man – tall, impatient in his movements, bearded, his eyes possessing a wildness that was evident at a glance. The firelight picked out a hint of red in his beard. He carried a sixshooter at his right hip, butt forward, and in his right hand was a rifle. His boots were heavy and flat-heeled denoting farmer rather than cattleman.

  “What outfit are you?”

  Every man there would have told him to mind his own damned business. Every man that is except Harding.

  “This is Colonel Struthers’ herd,” he said evenly.

  That seemed to amuse the stranger. He laughed, showing strong even white teeth.

  “Well,” he said, “ain’t that somethin’. Now, boss-man, you crossed the Kansas line today and as of now you’re under Kansas law.”

  “That follows,” Harding said with a nod.

  “Which means you ain’t got no right to be here at all,” said the big man.

  Harding said: “We’re Texans, but we’re still Americans. We have the same rights as any other man.”

  “Kansas law says your Texas cattle have the fever and can’t come this way no more.”

  “I’ll need a lawman to tell me that,” Harding said.

  “I’m telling you.”

  “That ain’t enough.”

  “I’ll put it plain for you, little man,” the stranger said, “you pay your toll or you turn around and head back into the Nations.”

  Harding looked up with a smile.

  “Now we’re gettin’ to it,” he said. “You’re cow-thieves. Why didn’t you say so at the start?”

  The big man was so taken aback at the open insult that he didn’t know what to say for a moment.

  Finally, he told Harding: “We’ll be along in the morning to cull your herd, mister. Every sick cow will be cut out.”

  “How many will that amount to?”

  “About three or four hundred head, I reckon. You won’t hardly miss ’em from your three thousand.” Which showed the Jay-hawkers had taken a good look at the herd during the day.

  Boss stood up. “I’ll buy you off with six head,” he said.

  The big stranger laughed again.

  “Nothin’ doin’,” he said.

  “A dozen an’ that’s my final offer.”

  The big man looked at him in amazement.

  “Listen, friend,” he said, “my message don’t seem to have gotten through to you. We ain’t here to bargain. We ain’t doin’ no deals. We’re tellin’ you.”

  Boss looked at him from his height of five foot nothing. He didn’t flinch. He looked like a suddenly aggressive little terrier.

  “No,” he said through his teeth, “you listen to me, you Yankee trash. I’m tellin’ you to get the hell outa here.”

  The big man started to raise the rifle. He did no more than start. Suddenly there was a gun in the little man’s hand and its muzzle was thrust hard into the Kansan’s belly.

  Boss said: “Git on your horse an’ ride an’ don’t let me see you beggin’ around this camp no more.”

  Several of the riders moved.

  From the darkness came McAllister’s voice —

  “Hold it or I blow somebody’s head off.”

  They all went very still. But nobody was so still as the big man with the gun in his belly. He got his eyes on that gun and its cocked hammer and he kept them there. Boss pushed him with it and he took one staggered pace backward.

  “Now, git,” Boss said.

  The big man looked as though he would like to say something if he could speak, but he looked past that. After a while he ground out: “This don’t let you off the hook, little man. We’ll be back.”

  Boss said: “Relieve them of their guns, boys. At least they won’t be back with them.”

  The Texans got on the move. They went among the horsemen and took rifles and revolvers from them, dumping the weapons in a heap by the fire. Boss looked on with grim satisfaction. The big man walked to his horse and climbed into the saddle. He looked like he could kill a man with his hands and enjoy it. Slowly the horsemen wheeled their animals and walked them away. A short while after, the listening crew heard them pounding away into the distance.

  “Double guard on the herd tonight,” Boss said as every man there let out his breath. “Come daylight we head back into the Nations. We’ll drive around this scum.”

  One of the boys said: “I reckon we could take on all Kansas, Boss.”

  Boss grinned. “So could I when I was your age, but right now I’m more concerned with getting these cow critturs to rail head. McAllister, come out of them trees.”

  McAllister walked into the firelight, putting away his gun. Boss snapped: “Who asked you to hone in?”
r />   “Nobody.”

  “Next time, wait till you’re asked.”

  “Might be too late.”

  “You reckon I can’t handle myself?”

  McAllister made a soft snorting sound and said: “You’re greedy, Boss, you want all the play.”

  Boss grinned a little, punched him on the arm and said: “Thanks, son.”

  They doubled up on the guards that night. The cattle were uneasy as if they smelled trouble and Boss always reckoned they could. One muley cow kept breaking for the hills and the boys spent all night throwing her back into the herd. They cursed the fact they had she-stuff along. A mixed herd always meant trouble. Boss had them out of their blankets long before dawn because he reckoned that if the Kansans were going to hit them it would be then, but he was wrong. They got the herd on the move going south without any trouble. They just nursed those cows along gently because even with the danger of being slow, Boss wouldn’t hurry the fat off them. That was the kind of man he was.

  McAllister rode on the right flank, which was a change from yesterday when he had ridden drag. He just nodded in the saddle and nudged those cows along grazing as they went so that they were unaware of being driven. Before they started the drive Boss had said: “When I’m boss, you don’t drive cattle; you head ’em in the direction you want to go and let ’em drift along.” That’s what they did now. And McAllister couldn’t say he enjoyed the sensation. Sure, the cattle settled down nicely because they were trail-broke, but every time he saw a patch of brush he thought he saw a Jayhawker behind it. But Boss calculated that they’d be in the Nations by nightfall. That couldn’t be too soon for McAllister. He hadn’t forgotten that the Kansans had had all their guns taken from them and Boss had buried them, but he reckoned that kind could lay their hands on guns if they needed them.

  But the going was slow and they didn’t reach the line by dark. However, Boss wasn’t overly worried. They were near enough and he thought they were clear of trouble. He found water for the herd, spent the last two or three hours of the day watering them, bedded them down on good grass, said the boys could keep the normal watches and the crew could enjoy the excellent meal Gus had prepared them. They ate and hit their blankets without any delay. They were all bone tired and on the trail a man slept when he could. McAllister got into his blankets and was asleep as soon as his head was down.

  Chapter 2

  McAllister knew what it was the instant that his tired mind snapped to consciousness.

  Under him the earth shook. Far away in the night there came the popping of guns. But it was the fear that lunged coldly through him that told him the cows were running.

  A man gave a startled yell, the tied horses tried to break loose, panic hit the remuda.

  McAllister reached for a boot and heaved it on. As his hand touched the second he heard the most terrifying sound a drover could hear in the night – the sound of a stampede heading toward you. He got the second boot on and was on his feet running, cannoning into another man as he reared up from his blankets and sending him flying. He reached a horse, he couldn’t see whose, in the darkness and somehow got into the saddle.

  He remembered Boss’s words: “If they run in the night, keep your head. Go with ’em. If you don’t yell or fire your fool gun under their noses to turn ’em, they’ll stay together and sometime they’ll stop runnin’.”

  He rammed home the spurs as the first terrified animals hit the camp. He heard them go into the wagon and heard it turn over with a crash. And then the thunder almost reached him and he knew that his frightened pony was heading the herd, charging crazily ahead through the trees into the darkness. He got his head down and clung on. All he could do was ride and keep riding till the longhorns stopped. It was up to the horse, there was nothing he could do but cling on. If the animal put its foot in a hole they were both finished.

  Once he looked back and in the starlight saw the sea of horns that he had heard crashing together all the while, saw the rolling eyes and the lolling tongues and prayed that the fact that horses were faster than cows was true. Once they hit a slope and strained up it. That slowed the cattle, but they attained speed again on the slope going down and McAllister feared they would run him into the ground. He spurred the little animal under him and got the right amount of speed from it.

  How long they ran, he had no idea, but it seemed an eternity, but at last the pace started to slow. The flat run came down to a trot, the trot reduced itself to a walk. He did nothing except what Boss had told him to do. He stayed with them and before long they had stopped and one or two of them started grazing. Dawn found him cold and miserable with something like five hundred head of cattle, a bushed horse, no weapon of any kind but his knife and the rope on the saddle. He knew from the direction he had taken that he was now far into the state of Kansas. Which didn’t comfort a man much. He couldn’t hope to drive this many cattle and all he could do was wait there till some of the boys came and gave him a hand.

  By noon he was hungry as hell and thinking that he would never see any of the boys again. Every time he saw a movement it was a Jayhawker. Finally, however, in the middle of the afternoon Curly Bent and Ike Doan came loping up.

  McAllister was pretty glad to see them instead of a bunch of Kansas men. They told him they’d been rounding up strays and had only hit on his trail a short while ago. He thought they must have been stupid or blind, but he was too glad to see them to say so. Together, they got the cattle on the move back toward camp. Boss or no Boss, they moved them along. They wanted out of Kansas and to be well below the Nations line. Although McAllister questioned the two men, they could tell him nothing about what had happened back there at the camp. They had lit out with a bunch of running cows and had stayed with them with a couple of other fellows. They were driving them back to camp when they struck McAllister’s sign. They decided to divide up and here they were.

  It was three hours of hard driving, keeping the cows at the trot and damn the tallow they ran off them, before they sighted camp. There seemed to be a couple of thousand other cows on the bedding ground, all looking rather the worse for wear and as if they hadn’t got another run in them. But McAllister wasn’t fooled. These cows would run again at the slightest excuse. They had found out it could be done. He helped the men throw their animals in with the main herd and looked around for Boss and couldn’t see him. He rode up toward the wagon. There were three men around it. Gus, the cook, was busy preparing food which he would have done under any circumstances. The wagon and Gus looked as though they had been through an osage hedge backward. The other two men were a cowhand named Jim Young with his arm in a sling and a Negro tophand named Sam Bostle.

  As McAllister walked up, the cook handed him a mug of coffee. McAllister took it gratefully and sipped. Sam looked up at him. He was a tall gray-haired man in his middle-years and had been Boss Harding’s right-hand man for many years. It was said that before the war Sam had been his slave. Certainly there wasn’t a better man with cows in all Texas and that was saying something.

  “Where’s Boss?’ McAllister asked.

  Sam pointed with his chin. McAllister turned and saw the tarp, body-shaped and still.

  Shock hit him.

  Boss was dead.

  “Trampled?” McAllister asked gently. He knew what Boss had meant to the Negro.

  Sam nodded. McAllister walked across the camp, leaned down and lifted the tarp. He inspected the dead man closely. It was not a pleasant task, for there wasn’t much left of Boss that was recognisable. But there was something he noticed. He covered the body, straightened and walked back to the wagon.

  “Sam,” he said, “Boss was trampled, but that wasn’t what killed him. He was shot twice. Once through the body and once in the head.”

  Sam sighed.

  “I didn’t think it possible the cows could have got him like that,” he said.

  McAllister squatted, sipping the hot bitter coffee.

  “What do you aim to do, Sam?” he asked.
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br />   The Negro raised his eyebrows.

  “Me? Why, do whichever Boss would of done,” he said. “First thing, us hands’ll take things over and choose a corporal. Then we’ll work our way around east then head north for Combville, jest like Boss would of done.”

  McAllister said: “We ain’t pickin’ no corporal, Sam. You’re tophand. Whatever Boss did you can do.”

  “I’m a black man, boy,” Sam said.

  “You never heard tell of a black trail boss?”

  “I did.”

  “Then you’re bossin’ this outfit. You know cows like nobody ever did. If there’s a man among us can get these critturs to Combville, you can. I ain’t puttin’ it to no vote. I’m tellin’ the boys you’ve took over an’ I’m backin’ you.”

  Sam stared at him hard for a moment, then he said: “All right. I’ll do it.” He stood up. “Maybe we should ought to drift these cows back over the line. These Kansas men ain’t finished with us’ns yet.”

  “Sam,” McAllister said, “I know you’re short-handed, but I don’t aim to go along with you.”

  The Negro frowned.

  “Rem, I need ever’ man I have.”

  “Sure, I know that like I said. But I reckon we owe old Boss somethin’ too. I’m goin’ to pick my own horse outa the remuda an’ I’m goin’ to find the man that killed him.”

  Sam said: “I know how you feel. I feel the same way. But there ain’t nothin’ you can do. There was a round dozen of them buzzards. An’ there’s more where they come from. You’re up against a hull state, Rem. You can’t do nothin’.”

  “Look, Sam,” McAllister said, “if I want to go to hell, I’ll go in my own way. That fancy talkin’ son-of-a-bitch that come in an’ told Boss what was what he took our cows an’ he has to sell them some place. Quickest sale he can make is in Combville or some other burg along the line. That’s where I’ll find him. An’ when I do, I’m goin’ to plant him.”

  He turned away and called to the remudero, a young farm boy on his first trip up the trail. The youngster caught up McAllister’s canelo horse and brought it over. McAllister quickly changed the bridle, blanket and saddle from the weary little bay he’d been riding onto the back of the California horse. He mounted and rode back toward the camp. He halted well clear of the cook and Gus called: “Got some chow for you to take along.”