McAllister (6 page)

He missed, but his shot wasn't wasted. The rifleman loosed off a shot, but he was badly rattled by McAllister's sudden move and missed also. The heavy ball drove dust into McAllister's face as he rapidly cocked and triggered off his second shot. As the .44 slug went home and the man was driven backwards off his feet, he heard a shout and the report of a gun below.

He was rolling onto his back now and snapping off a shot down slope, trying not to fear the other's lead and hurry, but missing just the same. A rising shot, also let off hurriedly by the man below, hit a rock below Mcallister and wasped its way into the sky. Mcallister cocked for another shot and the man ran for cover. The shot hit him as he made his final jump and hastened him on his way. He disappeared from sight, but his hitting the rock could be heard away off. He crashed on down the hillside.

His nerves now strung tight and ready to make him shoot at shadows, Mcallister raised up on his left hand to line his gun up with the young man in the white shirt only to find him going rapidly out of sight. It was a pleasant sound to hear him beating away through the rocks noisily to safety.

A second later José's massive old Dragoon gun boomed and was answered frantically by a lighter gun which Mcallister guessed was white shirt's Colt.

Mcallister sat up and bawled loudly for the Navajo to come and get him out of here. Within a few minutes, the Indian trotted into view above him to inform him that he had
three horses and that one of the bushwhackers had got away on another.

“Check if that one's dead, then go look for another down in the rocks yonder. And make it snappy, this wound's making me as hungry as all get out.”

José inspected the man above and declared him shot through the heart.

“God-damn it!” Mcallister said, pushing away the queasy feeling it gave him to know he'd killed a man. “I aimed at his head.”

The Navajo bounded down the grade and declared five minutes later that he had found the other man.

“Is he dead?”

José nodded.

“He is
now.”

Mcallister stared at him.

“You damned savage,” he said softly, but not without gratitude. “Bring those horses near as you can, slap my saddle on one and let's light a shuck.”

Mcallister Fainted a couple of times on the trip back and each time he came around, he complained that it was the sun. A man could have too much of it, you know. The Navajo grunted and did not seem impressed.

Their arrival at the ranch created something of a sensation and Mcallister was the last to complain about the events of the next hour or so. It was plain that he was thought by civilians and military to be a hero, which attribute he accepted with commendable modesty, but as his due. The woman, who at last he learned was named Ann Bankroft, and who seemed to have gotten over most of her shock, insisted that he have her bed. He protested mildly, but not enough to make her withdraw her offer and found himself lying on the best feather mattress he'd known in years and being made a great fuss of. He made a good show of hating it,
of course, but a regiment of cavalry wouldn't have moved him off it.

Mrs. Bankroft was certainly a frontier wife and no mistake. In no time at all, she had her kettle boiling and was cleaning up that wound of his. She showed the extent of her recovery by nagging him expertly on the fact of men being complete fools and that he must be the biggest fool of them all to have tackled all those bad men with his leg in this state. He sneered at her and liked it. When she fed him gruel, he roared for steak, but accepted the gruel and liked it. He couldn't do anything else, because he found that he was too weak to feed himself and she sat on the edge of the bed and spooned it into his mouth herself. Maybe it wasn't right, her being a widow woman for so short a time, but this was the frontier and widow women didn't pine along much after their husbands were planted. Sure, her eyes were red from weeping and she gave a suspicious sniff now and then, but looking after the desperately wounded Mcallister was doing her a whale of good.

When she had done with him, von Tannenberg paid him a visit to inquire after his health and to hold council.

In a remarkably strong voice for a man so weak, Mcallister told the soldier: “Mister, this is the way I see it. Somebody's after me and I wouldn't be surprised if they was after your gold too. So that makes it Franchon and some friends of his.”

“But they were Indians that cut their way into the corral.”

“Sure they were. We're up against two lots here. And my guess is, José an' me ran into only a few of the white crowd. It looks like they're so strong they ain't afraid of Indians.”

“That is possible.”

“You're darn tootin' it is. Now, this is what you do. First off, get George Rawlins in here.”

The lieutenant did that and George tramped stolidly into the room, grinning.

“Jumpin' snakes, you'm doin' all right for yourse'f, boss.”

“Take that grin off'n your face and listen. You checked all Carmody's goods aboard.”

“Yeah. Stake my life they's all correct, too.”

“When they was on board, did you come back to the corral or did you keep your eyes on the wagons till they was there?”

George stared at him belligerently for a moment and Mcallister snarled: “Well, did you?”

“No, I didn't and you know I didn't. I checked 'em aboard and come on back.”

“Okay. Then you go and take a look in Carmody's crates and tell me what's inside 'em.”

George went, muttering mutinously under his breath. Not long after, he returned muttering audibly, informing them that Carmody's crate contained just a lot of garbage and sand.

“That fat old, low, dirty, skulking, two-timing, crooked crawling bastard,” he finished in righteous outrage. “What does it mean, boss? What's he got to gain by this?”

“It's plain,” Mcallister told him. “Carmody isn't interested in this train reaching the Fort.”

“What's he want his own goods stopped for?”

“That's not what I said. This train's going to be stopped and Carmody knows it.”

“What—that fat, old—?”

“Not him personally.”

George was puzzled.

“Then what's he want to stop it for?”

“We're carrying an army payroll.”

The mule-skinner looked as if he had been betrayed.

“You didn't tell me nothin' about this.” He did a piece of thinking, apprehension coming into his eyes. “Franchon runs out on us. That can on'y mean one thing.”

Mcallister nodded—

“Yeah. Right first time. Go to the top of the class. They were going to jump us any day now. The whole Clover outfit. A small army that wouldn't be scared of Indians. We wouldn't give them any trouble because there were two of Carmody's men among us.”

“That means that driver out there … ”

“Go get him, George,” Mcallister said. “Tie him up.” When Rawlins had gone to carry out that task, Mcallister said to von Tannenberg: “Well, mister, where do we go from here?”

“We have only one way to go. Forward. But first you get well.”

“What?” Mcallister roared. “I'm well. Let me get out of this god-damn bed.”

“You can't travel with that leg.”

“Watch me.”

The scene that followed was a memorable one. Mrs. Bankroft, when she had got over her astonishment at her patient's claim to rapid recovery under her administrations, protested his escape vigorously. But Mcallister prevailed, as he so often did, and, when one of his men had made a crutch for him, he hobbled painfully into the yard to take charge of his side of the operation of moving out of here. In agreement with von Tannenberg, he had Carmody's wagon burned, so that the mules could be used as spares for the other wagons. The first thing any attackers would try for was the lead mules. One of these down and the whole train was halted.

Next he and the lieutenant planned the routine of the march, got into the men's heads exactly what they must do at a shouted command, wagons to circle with the animals to the center on order, outriders to be prepared for sorties at given signals, direct or by making a circling movement. The Prussian was all for modifying military tactics to the situation and had learned a lot from his several campaigns against the Apache. He had the sabers stored in a wagon as worse than useless and saw to it that each mounted man travelled as light as possible. The horses were nursed for the remainder of the day and night that the train remained at the ranch. They would be ready to move out thirty minutes after dawn on the following day.

Gato Rested in the heart of the
malpais
forty miles from Mesquite Springs among his followers, unflattered by the fact that he and his handful of men had half Arizona and two Mexican provinces in a state of acute alarm. He was unaware that his following had been variously reported in the American and Mexican presses as being a hundred or two hundred strong. What he did know was that there were several thousand white and Mexican troops on the lookout for him. That did not perturb him. He was used to that and
it gave him a feeling of honourable respectability. Already his people on the reservations were speaking admiringly of the number of horses, cattle and sheep he had taken.

The only emotion that he knew at this moment as he cleaned his fine Winchester rifle was anger. Three of his men had been killed in the last day. That meant that his natural enemy would also suffer. Equally or more. And it was proper that it should be so. He owed as much to himself and the relatives of the slain men.

He waited now for the reports of his two scouts. He wanted to know more about the people at the ranch. That wagon-train was unusually strong and had unusually resolute men on it. Gato had sent his own son to scout that position. The other scout was following the other party of whitemen, the ones who had slain the young Falling Deer not three miles from this spot. Gato's only fear was that either of these young men would be tempted to slay a whiteman and so discover to the White Eyes the Apaches' presence.

Gato was a medium-sized Apache, whose grandmother was said to have been a Mexican woman of extraordinary beauty captured on a raid into Sonora. Certainly, the Apache was a fine-featured man and not so squatly made as most of his people. True, he was not physically a powerful man, though his prowess and stamina were bywords among the nations. His face was somber in repose, but he could smile quickly and loved to laugh at the horse-play of the youngest members of his party. But he could be stern and ruthless and ever-willing to sacrifice a weak member for the majority. He was a man to be respected, loved and feared. He knew men and judged to a nicety when to encourage and when to threaten. He was also a man without fear—but that did not make him a reckless fool. A man who was either reckless or a fool could not have survived in this savage wilderness for the seven years he had been off the reservation. Sagacity, boldness and the ability to move fast and light made him a dangerous and illusive adversary. At this very moment, army command was sure that he was in the San Carlos mountains a good many days' ride from here. They were convinced that the raids on the Craddock horses and in the vicinity of Mesquite had been carried out by another party, too small to belong to Gato.

A sentry called out.

“Let him come,” Gato cried softly.

Out of the darkness stepped his son. Gato lifted his eyes and searched the young man's face in the small glimmer of light from the fire.

“What have you learned?”

“The people at the ranch have burned a wagon.”

Gato thought about it and could not think why they should do that. He asked—

“Was it old and no good?”

“No—it was a good wagon.”

“How many people?”

“I think five wagon people. One woman. Five soldiers.” Gato brooded and finally said: “They killed two of us.”

“Mcallister is there.”

Gato lifted his eyes from the flames and stared into his son's face. He knew that man of old. He remembered the time when Mcallister working for the army and in plain defiance of the Mexican authorities had gone almost single-handed into the Sonora hills and treated for Gato's surrender. That had been years back. Both Gato and Mcallister had been young bucks then. And Gato had surrendered on McAllister's word. But that word had been broken, not by the man but the government. The government then was not to be trusted. But still a man like Mcallister could serve it. Of one thing only was Gato still sure—he would never surrender again. Either Gato or Mcallister would die. It would have been better if all those years ago, he had cut the White Eye scout's throat instead of accepting his hand.

The sentry in the rocks called again and Gato answered: “Let him come,” and signed for his son to leave him, telling him he had done well.

The young man gave him a shy grin and walked away into the darkness. His place was taken by a small man past his best years. Yet still he had the reputation for having the sharpest eyes of his people. He was also noted for being a great thief. He wore a Mexican hat and an old army coat. His weapons were a breech-loading single-shot carbine and a butcher's knife. He grinned toothlessly as he squatted by his leader's side.

“Well?'

“They are four smokes by the single-tree-water. A White Eye from the wagon-train followed Falling Deer, but it was
not he who killed our brother. That was these people at the water.”

“I know that.”

“But what you do not know is that this White Eye from the wagon-train killed two of these other whitemen.”

Gato looked interested. He smiled and nodded to himself.

“This is very good.” His men and his horses could rest for a few days. These White Eyes would clash again. Let them hurt each other before the Apache struck.

“You have done well,” he told the veteran warrior. “When you have eaten and rested, you will watch the ranch. If the train leaves, return and tell me. Do not go near to the train or the ranch.”