McAllister Read online

  Mcallister swung on him.

  “There’s no time. Give me ‘yes’ or ‘no’.”

  Carmody heaved himself to his feet.

  “I’ll do better. I’ll fill your wagon and I’ll add one of my own.”

  If the old man thought he was getting thanked for that, he was mistaken. Mcallister nodded.

  “Now you’re talking sense. I’ll send a wagon around here right now for loading.”

  “We have to talk terms.”

  “That’s soon done. Fifty-fifty cut on the profit.”

  Carmody looked as if he was going to faint.

  “The deal’s off.”

  Mcallister opened the door.

  “Think about it whiles I get that wagon moving. You’ll see it my way.”

  Carmody heart-brokenly foresaw that he would.

  3

  As Mcallister returned to the corral, the place was alight with lamps. José had roused the teamsters and got them into action, the army officer was there with his men carrying packs into the corral under the inquisitive eyes of a couple of hundred onlookers. The place buzzed with speculative talk.

  On sighting McAllister, the officer left his men and approached.

  “Ah,” he cried, “So we make preparations. Good. I apologise. Tiredness has numbed my brains. I have not introduced myself, Mr. McAllister. Franz von Tannenberg, lieutenant, United States Cavalry.” He clicked his heels and jerked his head forward in a quick bow that made Mcallister jump.

  They shook and Mcallister asked: “Prussian Army?”

  “Prussian Army.”

  Mcallister had met several such serving the States. No doubt the troopers heaving and straining at those packs there were either Irish, English, or German or all three.

  “Say, what have you in those packs? Your boys’re finding it mighty hard work.”

  The lieutenant leaned close and whispered loudly: “Gold. Pay for the garrison at Fort Craddock. The men have not been paid for six months and there is a little—shall we call it uneasiness?”

  “How much?”

  “It is better not said.”

  Mcallister knew there would be too much for comfort.

  Pay for several hundred men who had not received any for six months would not be chicken feed. And the soldiers to guard it. Just before the Indian scare started an army pay detail had been robbed of over ten thousand not a day’s ride from here. The Apaches had been blamed for it, naturally, but every man in Mesquite Springs knew it had been the Clover gang. And they were probably right here in town now.

  This trip hadn’t sounded inviting back there in the saloon; it sounded downright horrible now.

  But, Mcallister told himself, as he went into the corral, it means solvency.

  He bawled for Sam Pritchard and told the little bow-legged Texan to haul his wagon around to Carmody’s quick as he liked.

  “And check what he puts on board, Sam. Don’t let that old sharper put one over you.”

  He spotted George Rawlins and his brother Jack heaving a water barrel to tie it on the side of a wagon. “George.”

  “Boss.”

  “Carmody’s going to loan us a wagon as well as filling one of ours. Sam’s checking our loading. Go check Carmody’s.”

  George grunted; “Come and take this off’n my hands, then.”

  Mcallister took over from him, taking the great weight with little effort. George walked away. When Jack had lashed the barrel fast, Mcallister went into the house and checked the rifles and guns, counting the boxes of ammunition and decided to take every round he could carry.

  Loading went on all evening and was not completed till eleven thirty by which time the watching crowd had doubled its size. Slim Hyatt, the gambler from the Belle, was taking bets on the chances of the train reaching Craddock without incident. The odds were heavy against it. They weren’t very promising against the train surviving at all. The teamsters didn’t take very kindly to this depressing state of affairs, but were cheered slightly when Mcallister bet his last ten dollars that they would get through.

  A few minutes later, Carmody’s wagon arrived with the fat man riding beside the driver. He got down with the sweating assistance of the driver and wheezed across to McAllister. George Rawlins came up and said the loading was okay and he’d checked the list. Another man joined them and stood at Carmody’s elbow. Mcallister knew him and didn’t like his being there. He liked it less when Carmody spoke.

  “Franchon’ll go along to look after my interests.”

  Lee Franchon was a smallish man with a big reputation that was as unpleasant as the man. A Mississippian, he had fought for the South in the war and was said to have taken part in several massacres with the guerillas in Missouri and Kansas. He had been around Mesquite Springs for two years and in that time had killed two men. Both in what was called a fair fight. The second whom he had shot down in broad daylight had been a man with a reputation of his own. Franchon, therefore, was a man to be watched and feared. Talk had it that he was a friend of Rich Clover, the leader of the Clover gang.

  Mcallister said: “We have enough without Franchon. I thought I was looking after your interests.”

  “I am a business man,” Carmody informed him and that seemed to clinch the argument.

  “Okay—but just remember there’s one man in charge of these wagons, Franchon.”

  The gunman smiled, showing perfect white teeth in the lamplight.

  Mcallister went on: “If you come along, you pull your weight.”

  “Don’t push me, Rem. I’m no teamster.”

  “That I know.”

  Mcallister turned away and called out to the lieutenant: “I’m all ready to go when you are, mister.”

  The officer called: “Mount up, corporal,” and the soldiers led their horses forward.

  Mcallister took the lead wagon with George Rawlins and gave the rear to Sam Pritchard, the lieutenant with his corporal took the van, placing two troopers in the center and two to the rear. The crowd drew back from the corral gates as the whips cracked and the mule-skinners yelled their harsh mule language, the dust rose in clouds as the animals took the strain, bunched their muscles and leaned on their heavy loads. Onlookers yelled their encouragement, Slim took his last bets and the train slowly wound its way from the lights of the corral onto the street and headed west. Mcallister lit his pipe and wondered just how good an Indian fighter this Prussian-trained lieutenant was. Maybe he’d know for sure before very long.

  Dawn found them going at a steady walk about ten miles west of Mesquite and no trouble. Von Tannenberg rode back to tell Mcallister that he thought they should rest up a few hours.

  “If it’s all the same to you, mister, we’ll push ahead whiles it’s cool and halt for the mid-day heat.”

  The soldier was a reasonable man, Mcallister was relieved to see, and agreed that it sounded like a good idea. They went ahead for another three hours and halted near poor water and the doubtful shade of some mesquite in an arroyo. But the beans from the trees were a welcome supplement to the feed the train carried. When they had breakfasted and rested awhile, Mcallister and his men collected what beans they could carry and loaded them into the wagons. Franchon and Carmody’s driver kept themselves to themselves and spoke to no-one.

  Von Tannenberg sought Mcallister out.

  “That man who watches everything that goes on and speaks to no one except that driver—he is one of your men?”

  “No. He belongs to Carmody.”

  “He does not look like a driver.”

  “The only thing he ever drove was other people’s cattle.”

  The lieutenant said: “So!” and marched away.

  While the noon heat was on the wane, they set off again, the mules complaining and reluctant in the heat, the men surly and driven in upon themselves by the breathless rays of the sun. They edged their way into an open rolling country, slightly stony and without vestige of vegetation anywhere in sight. Visibility, which Mcallister watched constantly and al
most unconsciously, was now reduced to about a half-mile. That meant that, if anybody jumped them, they would still have fair warning. Indians mounted on the fastest ponies could not reach them before they had time to get their guns into action, so long as the train spotted them in time. The lieutenant was apparently taking no chances and had a flanker out a half-mile on either hand. The corporal was ordered to the rear and Mcallister offered the Navajo to ride ahead, knowing that he was the best eyes and ears in the train, for his fear would make him supersensitive to Apache.

  Two hours before sunset, the lead mule of the second wagon went lame. Mcallister called a halt and inspected the animal’s off fore shoe. It was loose. The result was that the whole train heard mule language that was an education to all present. And most of it was directed at George Rawlins who had been responsible for checking the animals. George was angry and stolid under the torrent of abuse and answered back, which was what Mcallister had expected. He didn’t employ men who said ‘yes’ too often.

  “I don’t give a monkey’s jumpin’ hoot what you say,” George roared. “I checked that mule partikler and that shoe was fast and true.” He shut his mouth tight while Mcallister ran back over his ancestery and cast evil aspersions on the virtues of his mother, then started doggedly again. “I tell you I checked it and it was okay.”

  Mcallister stared at him, got a grip on himself and nodded.

  “Keno. I’ll take your word on that, George. Hold this fool animal whiles I takes another look.”

  While he was inspecting the hoof for a second time, Von Tannenberg came up and asked: “What is wrong, Mr. McAllister?”

  Mcallister pointed at the hoof.

  “Somebody’s been monkeying with this mule.”

  The soldier showed disbelief.

  “You are sure?”

  “Look at those marks there. Somebody pried this shoe loose. You agree, George?”

  “Yeah. What son would do a thing like that?”

  Mcallister dropped the hoof and straightened up.

  “One man stays with each team from now on while they’re hitched.” He shot a glance in the direction of the Carmody wagon. “The Carmody men don’t stand guard.”

  “How about this mule?”

  “Fix it.”

  George went to the rear of the wagon for tools. From the van came a cry: “Injun’s comin’ in.”

  Mcallister turned and heard the clatter of hoofs coming down the rocky grade ahead. José came into view, drumming his heels into the belly of his running pony. When he had brought his mount to a slithering halt he announced in his guttural and indistinct Spanish: “Apache have been this way.”

  “You seen them?”

  “No. Ranch ahead. Man dead and horses gone. I find sign of horses without the shoes of iron.”

  Mcallister said: “Lieutenant, I’m going up ahead to take a look around.” He signalled the Navajo to dismount and vaulted onto the pony’s back with an agility that brought an exclamation of amazement from the Dutchman. As Mcallister pounded out of sight, von Tannenberg said: “How does he do it?”

  George approaching with a hammer in his hand, laughed.

  “You ain’t seen nothin’, mister.”

  The lieutenant shouted for Corporal Young to get up ahead on the ridge and cover Mr. McAllister, the non-commissioned officer spurred his horse past and thundered after the disappearing McAllister. The men by the wagons choked on the dust and spat. George got started on the mule. Von Tannenberg strode down the line of wagons, bawling for the teamsters to close up and for the men to keep their eyes open.

  McAllister, pausing for a moment on the ridge-top, saw not a quarter of a mile below him a small house made of adobe standing close beside a high-walled corral of the same material. Running through the corral was a narrow stream of water. The water was obviously the reason for the situation of the house, that and the grass that grew for a fair distance on either side of it. The soft and mournful lowing of a cow brought his attention to the thinly scattered herd as it sought for its pitiful nourishment in this hard country. It took a fool or a hero to ranch this kind of land.

  He urged the pinto forward.

  He had not gone a hundred yards and was approaching the base of the ridge when the pony went crazy, pitching and rearing and finally backing off the trail. Mcallister dismounted and led the reluctant animal forward. He quickly found the reason for his horse’s terror. A dog lay by the side of the trail. Mcallister lifted the head by one ear and found that its throat had been cut. Tossing the carcase clear of the road so that it would not spook the teams, he remounted and pushed on cautiously, watching the house for any sign of life.

  To be prepared for action, he eased the old Remington loose in his belt.

  He got as far as the corral wall without seeing any vestige of life.

  Dismounting under cover of the high wall, he ground-hitched the pinto and went forward, aiming to get a glimpse inside the corral briefly just before he took his first close look at the house.

  He rounded the corner and saw the man.

  He was dead.

  He lay on his back in the center of the yard, arms flung wide, his body cut savagely by knives. He still wore his hair.

  Mcallister was shocked to stillness by the sight, but he did not forget to give the interior of the corral his inspection. It was empty.

  He lifted his eyes to the house, mounted on a platform of hardened earth, the open door reached by crude steps. It was impregnable as a fortress. One slotted window overlooked the corral for the protection of the stock. But just the same the Apache had got those horses out of there and that fool dead man there had run out to save them. He had not learned the lesson Mcallister had learned long ago when he was a button. If the Indians wanted your horses, you let ’em take ’em. That way you stayed alive. Sure, you weren’t much without a horse, but that was better than being nothing at all.

  Watching the front of the house, he advanced on it along one side of the yard, hugging the corral wall. That looked after his back.

  It wasn’t easy getting on the first step to mount the stoop because he had the unpleasant feeling that unseen eyes were watching him. The place was still and silent and he could hear a fly buzzing somewhere near. This was the house of the dead all right.

  He reached the stoop as the flutter of cloth touched the corner of his vision. Whirling, he dropped to one knee and cocked the Remington in one movement.

  Why he never fired and killed her with his nerves as they were, he never knew. But he didn’t. He kneeled there with the raised gun pointing at her breast and she stood still as death gazing at him from the far end of the stoop with the empty gaze of a person in deep shock.

  Shaking, he got to his feet.

  “Why, ma’am … ”

  She didn’t say anything, but made a keening sound in her throat.

  “Stay there. Stay right where you are.”

  Sure, she needed help, but he hadn’t taken a look inside the house yet and he wasn’t taking any chances. He never did. That was why he was still alive.

  He went through that doorway like a charging bull, gun still cocked and pretty sure he’d blast a shadow in half if it looked like a man. But there was nobody there—just two empty rooms with the same pitiful dead look the outside of the house had.

  Outside, he found that the woman was sitting on the edge of the stoop, staring at the ridge without seeing it.

  He touched his hat foolishly and she turned her head in his direction, but he felt she saw him like the figment of a dream.

  She was tall, he saw, well-made. Strong, with the thinned-down face this country gave a woman. Not thirty yet and maybe when the shock wasn’t on her face, kind of pleasant for a man to look at. He glanced over his shoulder and reckoned the dead man was maybe five years older than she was. That probably made him her husband.

  “Your man’s dead, ma’am,” he said. “The Indians killed him. We’ll take you out of here.”

  His words had the effect he wanted.<
br />
  The thin face crumpled and, for a brief moment, her eyes came into focus, seemed to settle in horror on his stubbled chin and broken nose and then she was weeping. Pushing her face into her hands and sobbing out loud. He put his arm around her shoulders and could feel them shaking. She subsided against him and clutched at his arm as he hastily eased the hammer off cock.

  After he had muttered comforting things for a few minutes, he patted her shoulder a couple of times and left her. Reaching the center of the yard, he had a clear view of the ridge with Corporal Young waiting mounted on its crest. Mcallister signalled to him to come on. As Young spurred his mount, Mcallister saw that José had joined him and was running by the stirrup, pacing the running horse. Mcallister chuckled, knowing the Indian could run that cavalry mount off its feet.

  When they pounded into the yard, Mcallister said quickly to the Navajo: “Get that dead man into the corral and bury him. Quick. Corporal, get Rawlins to cut that lame mule loose and get Mr. Tannenberg or whatever his name is down here with the train fast.”

  The corporal whirled his horse and clattered away. José bent over the dead man, picked him up effortlessly and headed for the corral. When Mcallister turned back to the woman, he found her watching with the look of horror returned to her face.

  He cursed himself for a fool. Of course—the Indian.

  “That’s all right, ma’am. That’s no Apache. That’s my Indian. He don’t like ‘Paches no more’n we do.”

  She started laughing then and he had to hit her in the face with the flat of his hand and after that she had a good loud cry till the train could be heard approaching. As the first mules entered the yard, Mcallister said: “Afraid you’ll have to snap out of it, lady. There’s work to be done. Us men’ll want coffee by the gallon and some hot chow if’n you can manage that.” And as she looked at him helplessly, he added: “Best to keep busy, I reckon.”

  She turned and went silently into the house.

  Von Tannenberg came up and dismounted. Quickly Mcallister told him what he had found. The Prussian looked shocked, but Mcallister was glad to see not too shocked. At least the man was hardened.