McAllister (2 page)

“I don't have time to talk. You want out, you throw a saddle on that pinto of yours and make tracks north to your own people.”

“I stay here.”

“Yeah? And how long do you think a brave Navajo warrior is going to last in this den of iniquity?” He punched the Indian in the chest to show there was no hard feelings. “Get them mules lined out and quit shaking in your boots. We'll have the army with us.”

“Soldiers?”

“Sure. Soldiers. A whole patrol of them.”

“How many?”

“Aw, around six-seven, I guess.”

“Two-three Apache laugh at them.”

Mcallister swore and turned away, knowing that was nothing but the truth. He felt he had a lump of cold clay in his stomach when he thought about it, but he knew he had to go ahead. A man could not admit defeat. If he could turn this trick he could be solvent. He thought of his dream for the first time in weeks—the little horse ranch up north in Colorado. And maybe a good strong woman on the stoop to welcome him home. But who would want a man with a face like his? Dream about the ranch, Rem, and leave the woman out of it.

He reached Carmody's and halted abruptly. He needed to swallow a couple of times and hitch his pants up—a way he had to get his courage up. A whole lot depended on how he played this old goat.

He stepped onto the raised board-walk and banged on the door with his fists. No walking into this house. After sundown it was like a fortress. The Apaches might raid the town, but they'd never catch old man Carmody napping.

A second and louder knock brought the sound of the man inside shuffling his cumbersome gait across the floor. His phlegmatic whisper came through the stout door.

“Who's there?”

Mcallister grinned to himself. He could picture Carmody with his old horse-pistol in his fist. “McAllister.”

“John?”

“No. He was my daddy and he's been dead twenty years. This is Rem.”

“What do you want?”

“Talk.”

“Tomorrow will do for talk.”

“This is business and urgent.”

Pause while the old goat weighed the pros and cons. Mcallister knew he could not resist the word ‘business'.

“Are you armed?”

“No.”

Mcallister waited patiently as three locks and a chain were worked. The door creaked open and he stepped into the hot
darkness of the house. The fat hand of the richest man in Mesquite Springs, in the whole neck of the woods for that matter, ran over maybe the poorest and checked he did not carry a gun.

“Strike a light,” the old man ordered. “Lamp's ahead of you.”

Mcallister struck a match, lit the lamp and turned to find Carmody easing the hammer of his gun down from full-cock. That kind of thing made Mcallister nervous.

“Pays to be careful,” he said conversationally.

“So I find,” the other agreed, eyeing the tall man narrowly. “Get it off your chest. I'm busy.”

Mcallister pulled an ancient and crazy-looking chair forward and sat. Carmody snorted.

“Don't make yourself comfortable. You ain't staying that long.”

“I know. I aim to be out of town by midnight.”

That took some of the wind out the old man's sails. It had been some weeks since anyone had ventured out of town.

“Talk.”

“I have a proposition.”

The old man eased himself agonisingly into a chair that voiced its complaint. Mcallister eyed his grossness with distaste. But the dollars were here and he had to take them.

“Last proposition you made me was selling those agricultural implements to the Apaches. Month later they were robbin' and stealin'. You ain't thought up another fool turn like that?” Carmody sniffed loudly.

Mcallister winced.

“This is a sure thing.”

“Spell it out for me.”

“I'm contracted to carry army supplies to Craddock.”

Carmody wheezed so loud Mcallister knew he was laughing.

“That's not business—that's suicide.”

“With an army escort.” He let that sink in and could see the old mind working. “Two wagons full of army supplies. I have a third one empty.”

The small eyes glinted from between the rolls of fat.

“And you expect me to be fool enough to fill it.”

“You'd be a fool not to. Trade's at a standstill here. Your
perishables are perishing and your capital's lying idle. That sounds like bad business.”

Carmody agonised over that thought. He had been doing that since the start of the Apache scare. He thought of the thousands of dollars that were not increasing and the thought was sacrilege to him.

When he had chased the idea this way and that a couple of times, been attracted by it and horrified at the risks to his goods in it, he said—

“How strong is the escort?”

“Six men.”

“And the Indians are running circles around three thousand soldiers.”

“I'll have five men besides. And the Navajo.”

Carmody pondered, trembling.

“The risk is too great.”

Mcallister started to sweat. He'd thought he'd had the old fool hooked.

“There's me. Ever heard tell of me losing a train?”

“No. But you take risks. Look at the way you went into that Apache rancheria that time for that Mexican kid.”

Mcallister reared up out of his chair so suddenly that the old man made a dive for the big gun he had lain on the table beside him. The tall man slammed his hand down on that same table so hard, the lamp jumped.

“I don't have the time to fool around with this kind of talk. I have to pull out by midnight. Okay, so I only have the army contract. I show a profit. I don't need your goods.”

He headed for the door, wondering if that would draw Carmody.

It did.

“Hold hard, son. See what I mean? You go off half-cocked. A man can dicker, can't he?”

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.

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 almost 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.