McAllister Rides (2 page)

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 foot, 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.

Ike said: “Der end you haf not heard of zis, poy.”

McAllister could always eat like a horse. After a fight his appetite became that of a ravenous wolf. He cadged a meal from Ike, hurled it down him, drank the whiskey Ike grudgingly gave him, washed up at the pump and, feeling a little better disposed toward the world, lay down in the shade of the stoop to sleep.

When he awoke, it was night and the moon was up. He stretched himself, found that he was as stiff and sore as all
get-out and wished he used a gun instead of his fists to settle his differences with the more hostile members of the human race. If his old man could see him now, he'd laugh himself sick. He sat up and discovered something – he was hungry again. He also discovered that somebody was sitting in Ike's old rocker not a spit away.

“So you finally woke up,” a deep voice said.

Without looking at him, McAllister thought:
Pushing fifty. Hard.

“It comes to all of us,” McAllister said.

“I've been waiting for a word with you.”

“Be my guest.”

The other man drew a deep breath.

“You're sassy,” he said. “Young. I expected something different”

“That's life,” McAllister said, “One disappointment after another.”

The older man made a noise like an engine about to blow a gasket. It was an unhappy sound. When he had simmered a little he managed to say through his teeth: “I heard you wanted work.”

“I want money. That ain't quite the same thing.”

“I heard you'd been around Indians, ain't afraid to take a few risks.”

“I been around the abergoins some. I like my hide whole as much as the next man.”

The man cleared his throat.

“I ain't the kind to beat around the bush. You heard we been hit by the Comanch'?”

“Sure.”

“They took a woman.”

“Killed a boy.”

“The woman was my wife.”

So this was the big rancher, Bourn. McAllister took out the pipe that was his pride and filled it with tobacco. Not a word was spoken as he fired it and puffed contentedly, sending clouds of foul smoke in the direction of the man in the rocker. Bourn coughed pointedly, but McAllister was indifferent. Finally, he said: “I want her back.”

“There's the Rangers,” McAllister told him. “Comancheros.” Bourn gave a snort of disgust at the mention of the
infamous Mexican go-betweens the Comanches used for contact with the Texans. Through them the Indians traded with the Texans in human merchandise. If the price was right and the Comanche captor did not wish to retain a girl or a woman, she might get back to her frontier family a year or two after her capture. If the captive were a healthy boy, the chances of his being returned were rather more slender, for it was said that the Comanche bands were running short of fertile males and there was a serious lack of warriors.

Bourn said: “I could try both, but they both take time. I want to get her back before …”

He let the rest hang in the air and it did not have to be spelled out to McAllister. Bourn wanted his wife back before she sired a halfbreed child. A woman given back by the Indians was a wretched thing, regarded generally as tainted and unclean. Unless her family were generous, her future life back among her own folk could be bad. McAllister had known one such woman down on the Pecos; she had been regarded as something different from other folk and unmarriageable.

McAllister thought about the woman in Comanche hands. It was said that she was young and pretty. One thing was certain – she wouldn't be young and pretty much longer. She didn't have a chance unless her captor was an exception to the rule. If she was given to the women, she would become a slave, a drudge to fetch water and fuel. She would be beaten savagely. Thinking about her wasn't pleasant. He liked to think himself hard, but he had a soft spot for women and kids.

“It's quite a chore, you got there,” he said, thinking.

“I'm willing to pay generously,” Bourn told him. McAllister pricked up his ears. Risk was risk, but money was money and he needed a stake. But a stake was no use to a man who died with a short Comanche lance through his ribs. This could do with a little thought.

“How generously?” he asked. He couldn't see this Bourn giving money away.

“Three hundred dollars,” Bourn said. “On one condition.”

“What's that?”

“That she ain't been touched.”

McAllister got to his feet, stretched and groaned with the pain of the exercise.

“I don't like the price and I don't like the condition,” he said.

Bourn growled.

“I'm being damned generous,” he said. “It ain't every day of the week a drifter gets that much offered to him.”

McAllister ignored the offensive tone. The sweet smell of cash overcame his anger.

“We won't never know if'n she's been touched,” he said. “No woman is going to come away from the Indians and admit it.” But everybody would think it, he added to himself.

“Leave that to me,” Bourn said.

“Like hell I will,” McAllister snorted. “That means you welch on me too easy. No, my price is five hundred for the woman, alive.”

“Five hundred!” Bourn's voice almost rose to a scream. “You're outa your mind, boy.”

“Don't call me ‘boy',” McAllister snapped. “Now you go and think, Bourn. You think where you can find another man who'll guarantee to bring your wife back into your loving arms. You'll find ten men, maybe, or twenty who would go busting in there and maybe bring out a dead woman. But where'll you find one man who'll do it quiet and bring her out alive?”

There was moon-shadow under the stoop cover and McAllister couldn't see the man's face.

“No,” Bourn said. “You go away and think about it. Three hundred and that's final.”

“Five hundred,” McAllister said, “and a hundred advance.”

Bourn stood up.

“I'll give you till noon tomorrow to come to your senses,” he barked.

“Come noon tomorrow,” McAllister said calmly, “I'll be drifting out of here, so it'll be your last chance.”

“Christ,” Bourn said desperately, “you could go in there and buy her back with a buck's worth of geegaws.”

“I could go in there and lose my hair,” McAllister returned. “You've only got one wife, I've only got one life.”

Bourn made a violent sound of disgust and stormed away. McAllister watched him join several riders at the corral. They
mounted their ponies and headed away into the east at a brisk pace. McAllister walked into the store and found Ike playing cards with his wife. Ike said: “Did Bourn proposition you?”

“Sure did.”

“He's crazy that man.”

“Five hundred dollars worth of crazy,” McAllister said, “How about something to eat, Mrs. Ike?”

Ike raised his powerful voice.

“You think I'm running a charity institootion or some-fink?”

Fat Mrs. Ike protested: “Der poy must eat, my darlink.”

“He'll eat me poor. Py Gott, how he eats!”

“Maybe you're only staking me till noon tomorrow,” McAllister told him.

In the lamplight, Ike's great moon of a face turned blankly to him.

“Py Gott,” he roared, “you're crazy too.”

* * *

It was noon. And it was hot.

McAllister lifted the saddlebags which Mrs. Ike had thoughtfully filled with supplies for him against her husband's orders.

“I'll mosey along, Ike,” he said.

“You owe me fifteen tollars,” Ike growled.

“Pay you Christmas.” Ike struck his forehead with the flat of his hand and made a noise like a gun going off. Mrs. Ike creased her fat face in smiles and said: “Don't make it so long next time, poy.” Ike looked as if he would weep. But when McAllister reached the door he said: “Rem, dem Richards ain't finished mit you. Zey could be over der ridge.”