Tough to Kill Read online

  Matt Chisholm

  Tough to Kill

  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

  1

  McShannon stayed still in the darkness, measuring the distance to his horse in his mind’s eye.

  He could see the men between himself and the lights of the house, searching for him and he cursed the fact that he had come without a gun. But who went courting with a gun strapped to his waist?

  Cautiously, he started to move backward, then turned and started to slip through the dark, planning to circle and come to the bay from the east. And as he went, he wondered what had gone wrong, how Markham had known that he would be here. He was sure that a trap had been set for him. The hound-dogs had been set on the wolf who dared to get near the rich man’s fold.

  But he didn’t know any real fear then, only a kind of apprehension. Men might laugh at McShannon being caught sniffing around a Markham girl. That was because he didn’t know Markham. If he had asked McAllister, the older man would have told him. To risk sparking a Markham girl was to risk more than ridicule. Down in Texas, so the stories went, men had died for it. Now Markham was up here in the north and he had brought a big bit of wild Texas with him. The sheriff might be the law in the rest of the county, but up here on Markham land, Markham was the law.

  A shadow moved suddenly in front of McShannon and he sidestepped instinctively to evade it. A man exclaimed and there was a rush of violent movement. Something struck McShannon hard on the left shoulder and he cried out with the surprise and pain of it. He stumbled to one knee and instinctively his right hand went back for the gun butt that wasn’t there.

  “Got you, you bastard,” a man panted.

  McShannon dove forward low, his arms encircling the man’s legs and tearing him from his feet. The fellow yelled as he went down. McShannon vaulted forward and brought both his knees down hard on the stomach beneath him. The man’s breath came out of him with a sound like a groaning organ. McShannon heaved to his feet, tried to run, but a hand came out of the darkness and grabbed an ankle, bringing him down hard to the ground. He landed painfully, ripped off an appropriately obscene oath that would have curled the hair of Markham’s fair daughter and rolled clear of the other.

  He knew then that he had a tough one here, for they both came to their feet in the same instant. McShannon’s eye caught a dull gleam and he knew that the man had a gun in his hand.

  The weapon thundered out and something plucked viciously at McShannon’s sleeve. Fear swooped through him then, and he knew that the only thing that would save him was a charge before the man could cock and fire again.

  McShannon launched himself at the shadowy figure before him, smashing out with a fist and finding flesh-covered bone. The man reared away into the dark, his breath heaving in with shock and pain. By the sound of it, he collided with a tree trunk. There was a sickening thud and McShannon did not wait for more. He turned and bolted. He knew that the fight had been heard by the men near the house and that they were coming on the run. McShannon knew that the best place for him was on the back of the bay headed down valley at a flat run.

  He went full tilt into the trunk of a tree and nearly knocked himself out. He sat down feeling that his skull had been shattered. Dully, he was aware of shouts from behind. He got groggily to his feet and rested a hand against the tree.

  A gun cracked sharply and bark was blasted into his face. His senses returned to him with remarkable rapidity. Ducking around the tree, he set off once more, knowing that the hounds were no more than a few jumps behind him. He knew that it was hopeless now to circle to reach the bay. He didn’t need the horse any more, he wanted a deep hole he could get into and pull in after him. Those hombres back there meant business and were as willing to put lead into him as break his jaw.

  Running was awkward on his high cowman’s heels, but he was hitting a pretty pace when he stepped out into space and felt himself falling. The gully must have been a good twenty feet deep and it was a miracle that he didn’t break a leg or his neck. When the men found him, he was on his hands and knees making noises like a dying calf. They hoisted him to his feet and one of the braver ones knocked him down again. Being McShannon he came back onto his feet and started hitting out blindly at them. They tripped him and gave him the boot. One tried to rip him with his spurs but McShannon caught him by the foot and put him on his face.

  Maybe they would have killed him then and there, but one of them said that Mr. Markham had better see him before they killed him.

  The remark seeped through into McShannons’ brain.

  Kill him?

  He had only been sparking a man’s daughter. He hadn’t shot her or raped her. He hadn’t even got to have a word with her.

  Somebody dropped a rawhide noose around his neck and they dragged him out of the gully so that he was more than half-strangled by the time he was on level ground among the trees. He wasn’t in a fit state to count heads very accurately, but he reckoned a half-dozen men dragged him all the way to the house and pitched him into the dust of the yard. He tried to sit up and somebody kicked him in the head. He retched noisily.

  After a while, a voice said: “Get on your feet, boy.”

  He got to his feet then not so much because he had been ordered to, but because he didn’t like to admit that he could not. He gained his feet and stood there swaying, trying to focus his reluctant eyes.

  The yard seemed full of men. A man larger and taller than the rest stood in front of him.

  “Anybody know who he is?” this man asked.

  “He’s McShannon from Little Creek,” a man said.

  “McShannon, huh? From Little Creek,” the big man said. “You shouldn’t have crossed the creek, McShannon, should you?”

  Through battered lips, McShannon said: “Up yours.”

  He heard the big man draw in his breath with a hiss, saw the fist drawn back and tried to stride clear of the blow. But he was late by a hundred years. The stars shone brightly again and it felt as if his jaw had exploded. The shock and pain of the blow was so bad that he didn’t feel himself hit the ground. This time, it took two men to set him up on his feet.

  “Why’d you come here, McShannon?” the big man asked.

  “You Markham?”

  “That’s my name.”

  “We-al, Markham, I come to court your daughter Alvina. I don’t seem too welcome tonight, so I’ll try again tomorrow night.”

  The big man hit him again. McShannon was so battered and numb that he felt little pain. This time when the two men put him on his feet, he crumpled in a heap. Markham had to bend over him and shout to get his message through.

  “Don’t cross the creek again, McShannon,” he told the prostrate man. Markham straightened up and beckoned to the men near him. “Take him across the creek and dump him. You don’t have to do it gently.”

  They threw him across a horse and tied him there. They seemed to be laughing a lot and he was glad that somebody was happy. They drove the horse at a trot and riding as he was wasn’t comfortable because the saddlehorn kept striking his side with the motion of the horse and a stirrup iron kept hitting him in the face. He couldn’t do much about it because they had tied him there.

  After what seemed to be hours and after the blood had run to his head and he was no more than s
emi-conscious, the agony of the horse’s motion stopped, the ropes about him were loosened and he landed on the ground in a heap. That got some happy laughs, too.

  He heard them ride away. He didn’t move as the sound of their going faded into the distance and he became gradually aware of the gentle sounds of the creek flowing by. He managed to get to his hands and knees and crawl to the edge of the water. The water was icy balm to his battered face and he drank voraciously.

  That made him feel a little more human, but still he didn’t feel too much like getting to his feet. However, after a while, thinking that if he was near the creek he must be near the house, he forced himself to his feet, swayed there a moment or two and began a tottering walk in the direction of the house.

  It seemed that he walked for eternity and that he fell more times than he could count. He philosophised that there were many situations in life in which a man could find himself and would be better off dead and this was one of them. In his hard life as a frontier waif, a prisoner of the Kiowas, a wild horse hunter and a trail driver he had been thrown, buffaloed, stomped, roped, whipped and shot, but he had never felt as bad as this. Maybe it was because humiliation had been thrown in with the violence. And all for a woman. All for his desire to see a lovely face he had no more than glimpsed in town one day for a fleeting moment. McAllister had told him that he didn’t stand a chance with a girl like Alvina Markham, but he didn’t listen. All he knew was that he hadn’t seen too many white women in his life, and none as beautiful as this one.

  He had heard of Markham, but never before seen the man. He had heard that he was a power in the land and jealously guarded his women, but he had never reckoned on being beaten near to death for wanting the sight of the daughter of the house. McAllister would crow and say: 1 told you so’. He would maybe laugh too.

  He knew he was near the house when he walked into the corral fence. That knocked him down and he was a long time getting up. Then he felt his way around the corral and made it across the yard to the house. No lights showed. It was late now and everybody slept. He climbed the stoop, failed to miss the creaking board and opened the door. By now he was at the end of his strength and fell on his face. He must have passed out because the next thing he was aware of was a light shining in his eyes and the faces of McAllister and Jack Owen as they stared down at him. Beyond them he could see the frightened eyes of the kid, Sarie.

  Quietly, McAllister said: “What happened to you, boy?”

  At first, McShannon could only mumble, but finally he managed to say: “Walked into a barn door.”

  Dryly, McAllister said: “It must of fought back awful hard.”

  Jack said: “Somebody used a spur on him.”

  “That same somebody,” McAllister added, “stomped him, kicked him in the head and tried to hang him with a rope.”

  “For heavens sakes,” Sarie said sharply, “put him on his bunk. He looks like he might die. I never saw a man beat so bad.”

  The two men lifted him by shoulders and legs and put him on his bunk. Sarie shooed them away from him and started pulling off his shirt. He tried to protest, but she carried on just the same, exclaiming when she saw the awful marks of the violence on his body. She bathed him with warm water and gently applied grease to his cuts and bruises. He didn’t tell her that he felt as if every bone in his body had been broken.

  When she was through, McAllister said in that tone that even Sarie knew was to be obeyed: “All right, Sarie, you done fine. Now get to your bed.”

  She went. McAllister and Jack stood and looked down at him. He couldn’t meet their steady gaze.

  “Well, son,” McAllister said. “Who did it?”

  “Don’t call me ‘son’,” McShannon tried to snap.

  “You might as well tell me now, because I’m goin’ to get it out of you. Where’d you go tonight?”

  “That’s my business.”

  Sarie said: “He was all spruced up.”

  Jack said: “That means courtin’.”

  McAllister grinned wickedly. “That means Alvina Markham,” he said.

  McShannon tried to sit up and sank back with a groan.

  “Get off my back,” he growled. “I ride with you, I bunk with you, I damn well eat with you. What I do with the rest of my time is my affair.”

  McAllister pulled a chair forward and, filling his pipe, solemnly surveyed the battered man. When he had lit his pipe and was puffing serenely, he smirked and said smugly: “Come daylight – daylight mark you - I’m a-ridin’ up to the Markham place an’ I’m courtin’.”

  McShannon glared at him.

  “You stay away from my girl,” he said thickly. “Every time I find me a high-steppin’ filly, you wait till I’m outa the way an’ you step in with your fancy words.”

  McAllister said: “If you mean Alvina, don’t you fret none. I leave the little girls to the boys. I have a hankerin’ after the lord of the manor’s sister - Carlotta.”

  McShannon’s eyes bugged.

  “Miss Charlie!” he exclaimed. “Why, she’s an old woman.”

  “I’ll have you know, child,” McAllister said hotly, “that Carlotta is a fine upstandin’ woman of no more’n a year or two past thirty.”

  Scandalised, Sarie said: “People over thirty don’t court. It ain’t decent.”

  “Listen, baby,” McAllister said, no less hotly than before, “Miss Charlie is a women enterin’ on her best and mature years. No skinny child like Alvina can hold a candle to a woman with face an’ figure like that. She’s all a man could desire.”

  “Not this man,” McShannon said.

  “This is where,” McAllister declared, “the men get sorted out from the boys. Dawn, tomorrow, we ride an’ you’ll see how courtin’ is done in the grand old style.”

  “We?” Jack Owen asked with a quaver.

  “Meanin’ the three of us. You don’t think I’d ride into that hornets’ nest on my lonesome, do you?”

  2

  They ate breakfast before light, Sarie grumbling that she had to get up so early to feed them. Jack and McShannon were surly, McShannon particularly, because he felt like hell. Every bone in his body felt as if it had been misplaced and his muscles were pure agony where they had stiffened in the night. He looked like something a coyote had rejected as unfit for consumption.

  McAllister appeared quite light-hearted and his companions silently cursed his smiling face. McAllister and Jack caught up the horses and Jack offered to saddle McShannon’s bay for him, but the red-haired boy refused. So they had to wait while he fumbled around trying to get his cinches tightened with hands that had been trodden on by high-heeled cowmen’s boots. If McAllister had any sympathy for him, he didn’t show it. Jack Owen, being a soft-hearted man showed it and McShannon resented the fact.

  Finally, they were mounted and rode out with Sarie waving to them from the stoop. They crossed the creek at the ford with the water coming up to their stirrup-irons and rose dripping water on the other side. McAllister led the way east at a steady trot that was Indian torture to McShannon. He clenched his teeth and didn’t utter the groans that wanted to come out They rode for maybe two hours and then they knew that they were on land claimed by Markham when they started to see cows bearing his Box M brand. They were good stock crossed between longhorns and shorthorns. They were wild and pretty fast, but they carried a good ration of beef. McAllister turned frequently in the saddle to admire them. He didn’t give any sign that he knew what he was riding into. But both the other men were aware that he knew right enough. McAllister never did anything without his eyes open and with guile or calculated bluff.

  McShannon was plain miserable. Besides being in pain, he did not look forward to what was coming. Jack Owen was plain scared. He knew what was coming right enough and he feared it. The only thing he didn’t fear in this world was wild horses. Guns were things that he hated. And, to his mind, where there were men like Markham, there were guns. Markham was a big man, bigger than the law, men said. They also sai
d that he had something like two hundred men working for him in his three outfits. He wasn’t a king, he was an emperor. He had most of the creek sides dotted with land claims made by his men in this neck of the woods and that gave him control of the hinderland of grass, for grass was of no use to cattlemen without water. He owned similar claims in Montana and Colorado and his cows were reckoned at something like sixty thousand. Some said more. Not for him the formation of cattle companies on foreign capital. He owned his range, lock stock and barrel. Sure, he actually owned no more than the small claims along the creeks, but the rest he held by strength. And he looked as if he would go on holding it.

  Jack compared what he and his partners owned with that of the emperor and it was less than nothing. Three claims along the creek side, five hundred head of cattle and maybe a hundred horses. And what were three men against an army? He cursed McShannon to himself. He, Jack Owen, was going on this crazy ride just because the fool had decided he wanted to spark a rich man’s daughter. And because McShannon had been beaten and humiliated, McAllister had to act as if it had happened to him. Jack had felt safe since he had teamed up with McAllister and McShannon, there were two guns, ready and willing, standing between him and the rest of this wild western world, but now this. He felt as if he were riding to his own funeral.

  McAllister jerked back over his shoulder: “We got company.”

  Jack lifted his eyes.

  Three riders dotted the next ridge. Fear fluttered through the little rider. He urged his red gelding up alongside the big man.

  “What do we do?” he demanded. “You know Markham don’t allow no outsiders on his range.”

  “Leave this to me,” McAllister said. “Just sit tight and keep your mouth shut.”

  Jack fell back to the rear, watching the three riders ahead loping their horses toward them. McAllister halted and the other two followed suit, Jack sitting tense in the saddle and McShannon drooping there. The three Box M men came up in style, brought their ponies to a running halt and showered tufts of grass and dirt everywhere. McAllister knew one of them slightly and had taken a drink with him once at a saloon in town. His name was Foley. He was a tough, bean-string of a man, pale-eyed and quiet. McAllister had gathered that he worked for Markham as one of his several straw-bosses.