McAllister Rides Read online

  McAllister Rides

  Matt Chisholm

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  One

  His name was Remington McAllister. He was young and the whole world seemed young, too. He was reckless, carefree, heart-free and broke. The war between the states was just over and he had experienced the tail-end of it on the losing side, for, if he belonged to any set spot on earth, it was Texas. But his daddy had been a wandering man and his own feet were just as fiddling and he felt as much at home in the high country of Montana as the deep brasada of the Nueces Country of south-west Texas.

  His mother had been … well, it depended on how sober the old man had been when he told the story. Sometimes she was a high-born Mexican lady, at others a Cheyenne princess. It didn’t matter to McAllister because he had learned to be not only tough in his body but in his mind from an early age. His father, who had trapped with Kit Carson, traded with the Bents and raised hell with the Blackfoot with Jim Bridger, had always impressed upon him that nothing mattered much so long as a man had his independence, a gun, a horse and enough drinking money in his pocket.

  If McAllister had been brought up at all, it had been by his father, when he had been there to do any bringing up. Old Chad McAllister had done his best with a fine flow of cuss words, the back of his horny hand and the buckle of his belt to teach young Rem all he knew. Which was considerable. McAllister grew up able to shoot with belt gun and rifle, to ride, rope and hogtie; he could fight with gun, fists, whip, knife, boots and spurs. Fear was well-known to him and he permitted it to modify his behaviour, but never to throw him. He bowed his head to no man, swore (poor fool) that he would never be trapped by a woman and had a curiously soft spot for the defenseless, especially small animals and children. From which you will gather that though rawhide hard, he was no bully, and, though he knew fear, he was no coward. He had been born and trained to stay alive in the dangerous environment of his day.

  His twentieth birthday found him looking for a job or anything that would provide him with a little spending money, it also found him in possession of little more than a Remington revolver, five shot and .44 caliber, a Henry repeating rifle, a battered saddle and a fine canelo pony which he would not have swapped for anything this side of the gates of paradise. He had spent the last month chasing a red mustang stallion which he had not caught, he had had a brush with a war-party of Kiowas and was now low on ammunition, completely out of supplies and his one spare shirt had been used for bandage to plug a hole made in him by an Indian arrow.

  In this state he came to the small frontier town of Gibbs-ville which had been named for an itinerant pedlar of bad whiskey who had met his justified end at a river crossing at the hands of the Indians he had been slowly killing with his foul distillation. The place showed some signs of prosperity and of growing, for here trail-herds up from Texas stopped to replenish their supplies. There was a big store selling everything useful to man, a couple of saloons and a few adobe houses. There was no official law here and the not infrequent quarrels of men who habitually wore guns were settled either with those same guns or by Big Ike Goldheimer who ran the store.

  It was spring, rain was still in the air and the grass was fine and green. Just south of the little settlement grazed a large trail-herd of some two thousand mixed longhorns nursed by a handful of riders. They waved to McAllister as he trotted by on the canelo and McAllister toyed briefly with the idea of enquiring if there was a place in the outfit going spare. But only for a moment for he had tasted trail-herding and regarded it as dangerous work for little pay. It was hard, monotonous and boring. At twenty he fancied some fast action and some quick cash-money, so he lifted his pony to a lope and headed down the ridge into town.

  He stepped down from the saddle at the entrance to the store, tied up and walked into the cool of the long building. Ike was attending to the needs of what looked like the trail-boss of the herd but he took time out to bawl a greeting to McAllister whom he knew. McAllister lounged till the trail-boss, a lanky gun-hung Texas man, dragged his spurs outside, stepped into the saddle and rode away.

  McAllister and Goldheimer shook.

  McAllister saw an immensely fat and tall man with fists like hams, eyes pale blue, hair fair and curly and a mouth that laughed easily. Goldheimer saw a tall young man, swart as an Indian, black-eyed and hard-mouthed, buckskin jacket frayed and greasy, shotgun chaps in as bad a condition, a large hogleg of a gun worn high on the right hip. The storekeeper had known the father and reckoned the son was a chip off the old block. Neither were men to tangle with; they made good friends, none better, and highly efficient enemies.

  “Vot luck, Rem?” Ike asked, knowing of the horse hunt.

  McAllister smiled.

  “Ever tried chasing a good broomtail on your lonesome?”

  Ike nodded and sighed.

  “So you vill be wanting credit, heh?”

  “Just one drink.”

  “Just von drink, he says. As if it was possible.” Ike tore his hair a little. “I shall never make a profit. I have too much heart for a goot pizzness man.”

  McAllister reckoned Ike could buy the state of Texas and still have change left over. The big Jew took a mug to a barrel and filled it, handed it to McAllister and picked up his long-stemmed pipe. He fired a match, puffed and watched the young man lugubriously as he drank. A magnificent shudder of gigantic proportion went through McAllister, he caught his breath and said: “Aaaah!”

  “What’s new?” he asked.

  “Last veek, der Comanches.”

  “Here?”

  “Tventy miles vest.”

  “Anybody hit?”

  “Der Bourns. Young Mrs. Bourn, she vas taken.”

  McAllister thought about that. He had never seen the girl, but he had heard about her. Who hadn’t? Famed for her beauty throughout this corner of Texas. Married to a man twenty years older than herself. He knew Bourn. A mean man and a powerful one, as powerful as a Texas man could be with the carpetbaggers in. They said he had big interests in San Antone and Austin. He could smell out a profit like a coyote smelled carrion.

  “A young poy who vorked for Bourn, he vass killed. A terrible zing.”

  “Anybody I know?”

  “Johnny Snider.”

  He knew Johnny, a bright-faced boy, eager and willing. He had lost his hair under a Comanche moon. McAllister drank up and heard the faint scream in his head of a young boy coming under the knife. He had heard it in reality more than once. It was something you had to expect when you settled in a country claimed by savages. No good bellyaching. He finished the drink, said: “Thanks, Ike,” and laid the mug on the counter that was a plank laid across two barrels.

  “And zere is anozzer zing.” The big Jew looked troubled. “Morny Richards is here.”

  McAllister looked at him blankly for a moment, taking the shock of the announcement, then he chuckled and instinctively hitched his gun around so that it was easy to his right hand.

  “Now,” Ike said hastily, “I don’t vant no trouble here, Rem.”

  “Trouble? Hell, you know what I owe him, Ike.”

  Ike knew all right

  The frontier code was simple, so simple that any fool could understand it. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth and where there was no official law a man made h
is own. Thou shalt not molest a decent woman, thou shalt not steal another man’s horse nor brand his cattle. And Richards had stolen a horse. McAllister’s horse. In the heart of Comanche country, the year before. It had taken McAllister a week to walk to the nearest settlement and he had arrived more dead than alive and with a well-developed wish to see Richards over the sight of his Remington .44 But the man had apparently disappeared into the endless wastes of the west. Now he was here.

  Ike was agitated.

  He could handle most things, but the idea of two men like McAllister and Richards tangling didn’t appeal to him.

  “No, no trouble, Rem,” he said. “You owe it to me.”

  “I don’t aim to give you no trouble, Ike,” McAllister said. “But Richards – now, that’s another matter.”

  “He has his two brothers mit him,” Ike told him.

  That information slowed McAllister a mite, but it didn’t stop him.

  “Boy,” he said, “you meant it when you said trouble. Three dead men sure is a problem.”

  Ike wrung his hands a little.

  The doorway darkened. They both turned.

  Richards stood just inside.

  He was big, bigger than McAllister. He was lean and he was hard. He had the face of a man who would rob his own grandmother and find pleasure in it.

  “Saw you ride in, Rem,” he said casually. “Thought you’d be a-lookin’ for me, so I’m savin’ you the trouble.”

  McAllister grinned.

  “You owe me a horse, Morny,” he said.

  Richards said: “Now, see here, boy, I can explain.”

  “You could talk all night and you couldn’t explain away the time I took walkin’ across the Stakes Plains.”

  “I thought you was finished.”

  “Well, now I think you’re finished, so that makes us quits,” McAllister said. “How will you have it, Morny – fists, knife or gun?”

  Morny smiled. He had done all his pride would allow him to do to sidestep a fight; now he was ready for it.

  He said: “I can take you any way you like to name, boy.”

  “I have a hankerin’,” McAllister said, “to mark you up some before I break your coyote’s neck.”

  Richards nodded.

  “Fists it is,” he said.

  Where’re his two brothers at? McAllister wondered. Morny wouldn’t be so willing to fight if they weren’t around. He was capable of fighting like a cornered cougar and McAllister had seen him do it, but he wasn’t one to brace McAllister without an ace up his sleeve.

  McAllister unbuckled his belt and laid his gun on the counter. Richards unbuckled his and laid belt and gun on a pile of sacks. Then he hitched his pants and stood ready, the grin gone from his face.

  “Mein Gott,” the storekeeper said, “not in here. Outside you two.”

  Morny Richards said: “I’ll break his jaw here, Ike, then you won’t have to drag him inside.”

  “Outside, Morny,” McAllister said, “or do you want me to put you out?”

  Richards said: “All right, outside,” and turned through the open doorway. McAllister followed warily.

  As soon as he reached the doorway, the man in front of him turned quickly and swung a fist for his face. McAllister ducked under it, caught hold of the wrist in both hands, turned and heaved and hurled Richards across the store. He hit the counter and brought it, the barrels supporting it and Ike Goldheimer down with a crash. Ike swore horrible oaths, tried to get up and collapsed as a sack of flour landed, seemingly from nowhere, on his chest. Richards lurched to his feet in a fury and hurled himself at McAllister who gave way abruptly before the fury of his attack, went down under it, landed on his shoulders and hurled Richards over him. The big man landed in the doorway on his face and groaned.

  Ike disentangled himself from counter, barrels and flour and howled: “You vill pay for zis, py Gott. You vill pay, you Goddampt safages.”

  Richards got to his feet and staggered out into the open. McAllister followed him, paused a moment as he was blinded by the brilliant sunlight and heard a faint sound to his right. Turning his head in that direction, he saw Morny’s elder brother, Rick, a big red-headed man with a straggling beard and broken teeth. He looked left and saw Seth, Morny’s younger brother, a tall lean boy of McAllister’s age.

  McAllister said: “I wondered why you had guts all of a sudden, Morny.”

  “Take him, boys,” Morny told his brothers.

  Rick hitched his pants and said: “Pleasure.”

  “You sure you got enough to do the chore?” McAllister asked. “You want to call a few more kin and friends in on it?”

  “That’s real nice of you-all,” Seth told him, “but I reckon the three of us-uns can settle your hash real elegant.”

  From the doorway, Ike said: “Keep it to fists, poys. First men touches a knife or a gun, I plow his fool head off.”

  They turned and saw him standing there with a shotgun in his hands.

  They didn’t waste any more time. The three of them moved in. McAllister didn’t wait for them, but took the fight to them because there wasn’t anything else he could do. Morny looked slightly weakened by his two falls, so he charged him, driving one fist into his belly and one quickly into his face. Morny fell back before him but could not escape, for McAllister seized him by his bandanna and hurled him choking at his elder brother. Rick raised his hands to ward him off, McAllister danced forward lightly going around Morny and attacked Rick from the side. Morny clutched at his brother for support and dragged him half-down by which time McAllister had hit him hard over the ear. Morny and Rick went down in a heap. Seth ran in. To meet him, McAllister jumped with both feet on Rick’s by no means flat stomach and knocked the air out of him, then hurled himself on Seth.

  The younger boy was fast and he could use his head. He evaded McAllister who lost his balance and landed full-length in the dust. Seth ran in with both feet stamping, but McAllister was rolling, going nearly to Ike’s feet who stepped back hastily into his store. McAllister got up at the same moment that Morny and Rick did so and Seth swung a fist for McAllister which was blocked with a forearm. McAllister darted in two rapid blows with his left to the belly and face and, as Seth staggered back, he hooked a foot behind one of Seth’s and put him on his back. It was a matter of keeping on the move and not stopping till it was all over one way or the other. In the first fast moves he had had it all his own way, but he knew that it wouldn’t stay that way for long.

  Morny was coming off the ground, his face blood and dust-flecked, small eyes snapping with rage. Rick was sitting up holding his belly. Morny charged and McAllister turned to meet him. They stood toe to toe slugging and McAllister knew that would get him nowhere – the big man would wear him down and give the other two the opportunity to come to his aid. Already Rick and Seth were on their feet, advancing slowly.

  Morny drove a knee into McAllister’s groin. McAllister jackknifed as agony seered through him, Morny brought his knee up again, this time in his face and put him on his back. McAllister never saw who but somebody swung a couple of kicks into his ribs. He rolled and the feet followed, punishing him. He caught an ankle, heaved and brought a man down. He lunged onto the man, jammed an elbow in his throat, heard a choking noise and rammed his knees into a hard belly. The man under him went still.

  A boot caught McAllister in the side and knocked him clear.

  He hit the ground hard, catapulted to his feet and dove at the man standing nearest to him. He and this man hit the ground, McAllister swarmed all over him, driving punches until somebody seized him by the collar, heaved him off and dumped him in the dust. He never stopped. As soon as he hit, he rolled, got his feet under him and reared to his feet. He was tiring fast now and he knew he must try and finish it, but he had small hopes.

  The man confronting him was Seth.

  McAllister wiped his face with the sleeve of his shirt and found it covered with blood.

  Seth aimed a kick at him, he caught the flying foo
t, upending the boy and turned in time to receive a smashing blow from Morny. He took it on his cheekbone and it stopped him dead, dazed and bewildered. Morny came on. McAllister backed up, tried to parry a blow to his belly and failed, tried to dodge a fist aimed for his face and failed, backed up some more and found himself against the wall of the store. Morny got his head down and drove it, with the whole weight of his body behind it, into McAllister’s belly. With a sigh McAllister started to slide down the wall, but he was held there momentarily by the blows that Morny pumped at his face. He felt himself going … going…

  It was willpower or nothing then, because he had nothing else left to him.

  He managed to catch a-hold of one of Morny’s fists. Sidestepping, he smashed a rounding blow at the back of the man’s head and drove it into the wall of the house. Morny went down on his hands and knees and started to wander around like that as if searching for something he had lost.

  McAllister watched him with interest, his legs turned to water. Slowly, Morny came to a stop and subsided into the dust without a sound.

  McAllister turned and found Seth standing very still.

  There was a gun in his hand.

  Ike said, cocking the twin hammers of the shotgun: “Put that gun down, poy, or, py Gott, I cut you in haff mit zis gun.”

  Seth looked as if he would break into tears, but he put the gun away slowly.

  “Take zese brozzers of yours,” Ike said, “unt get zem out of here. Pretty dampt qvuick. If I efer see you arount here again it vill be ze vorst for you. Understant?”

  Seth understood. He walked to the watertrough, filled a pail and emptied it over Morny. The big man kicked feebly a couple of times and lay still. Seth filled the bucket again and repeated the dose. Morny sat up and said if he did that again he’d pin his fool hide to the door. Next came Rick. One was enough for him. He did not like water. He and Morny got slowly to their feet.

  “Clear out,” Ike said. “The free of you.”

  “We hafta have supplies,” Morny said.

  “Not from me. Get the hell out. Qvuick.”

  They moved off toward the corral slowly where their horses were hitched. McAllister staggered into the store and put on his gun. When he returned, they had caught their horses and were saddling them. He and Ike did not speak until they rode away.