Gunsmoke for McAllister (15 page)

Another fifteen minutes passed and finally Sam stood up. He and the Indian exchanged signs, then shook hands. They turned and walked back to their own people. McAllister took a hard look at Sam and reckoned he looked like a man should after he has been under hard strain. But he managed a little grin as he joined them.

‘Phew!' he said. ‘I don't ever want to live through that again.'

‘What was you palaverin' about?' McAllister demanded, not taking his eyes from the Indians and seeing that they had gathered around the chief and were being talked at.

‘That was Gato,' Sam said, ‘as no doubt you guessed. Like you said, there's too many of us here and he'd like to roast Diaz and Porfirio over a slow fire.' The two Mexicans looked a little sick, as well they might. ‘I had to talk fast, but I won him over when I told him we'd all been Rawley's prisoners. He didn't believe it at first, but he finally swallowed it. Rawley has killed a good round half-dozen of his men and he's fit to be tied. I told him we aimed to wipe out Rawley an' his bunch. Again he didn't swallow it right off, but I reckoned I talked him into it.'

‘Sam,' McAllister said, ‘if you did that, you did pretty damn well.'

‘I did more'n that, Sam told him. ‘I talked him into lettin' us have horses.'

Diaz said with great astonishment: ‘This I have to see,
por Dios.'

‘Tomorrow,' he said, ‘he'll bring us all the horses we need. That suits us fine. Rawley's moving slowly. We'll catch him easy.'

McAllister said: ‘What does he want in return?'

Sam said: ‘Nothin'.'

‘Now I heard everythin'.'

Porfirio clapped his hands together in surprised delight. ‘An Apache gives horses to a Christian. This is a miracle. Sam, you have a golden tongue.'

‘He ain't just a pretty face after all,' McAllister said. The Indians were riding around the basin now, dismounting to inspect odds and ends left behind by the late owners. Cries of pleasure came from them as they found something they valued. The iron and steel of the mills interested them greatly and they
gathered around them like flies around a jam-pot. Several rode up to the cookhouse, ignoring the five nerve-wrecked people there and moments later came out triumphantly with pots and pans. These gave them enormous delight and suddenly instead of fearsome warriors they were innocent children. Carlita with her traditional Mexican fear of ‘the barbarians', fled to Sam's arms for protection. Porfirio and Diaz looked like men who would have to sell their lives dearly any second and McAllister himself kept his finger through the trigger-guard of his rifle. But beyond shouting at them a time or two, the Indians took no notice of them and swaggered to their ponies and rode away. Not long after they rode out of the basin, streaming away in single file up the western trail and disappearing in a small cloud of dust.

Only now did the five people in the basin breathe more easily. Carlita looked as if she would collapse, such an effect did Apaches have on even a woman with guts as she had.

McAllister said: ‘One of us up on the rimrock, just to be sure none of Rawley's boys come back. Carlita, we'll build a fire for you and you cook us the best meal we've ever eaten.'

The release of their tension made everybody suddenly gay. The Mexicans were all smiles and Diaz told them how he had been prepared to sell his life dearly to
los Indios salvajes.
He admitted that the barbarians scared the living daylights out of him, but a Christian had of necessity to be valiant and brave before such barbarian animals. Porfirio volunteered to go up on the rim of the basin and watch. They thanked him and he set off on foot, telling them that if they came in force he would fire a shot, but if only one came, then he would sign to them. There was a pile of firewood still outside the cook-shack and the men carried this inside for Carlita. McAllister and Diaz saw to the horses, throwing them into the corral and watering them. There was still some bait left around and the hungry animals fell on it with a will. When they returned to the cookhouse, they were welcomed by a delicious smell of cooking. Not long after, they were all eating bacon and beans and McAllister thought he had never tasted a finer meal in his life. They had to wash it down with nothing better than tepid water, but they were all well-satisfied. After the meal, Sam went off to relieve Porfirio and McAllister saddled the canelo to go and search out Rawley's sign and decided exactly where he was heading. Diaz decided that he would like to go with him, for he knew the country pretty well and might be of some help.

They rode east till noon and during that time, the Mexican showed McAllister that he not only knew the country well, but that he could interpret sign with the best. He was, he boasted modestly to McAllister, a true
hombre del campo.
His father before him had had great knowledge of the wild places and had taught all he knew to his son. The old man had at one time been a prisoner of the Apache. He had been with them for two-three years and in that time he had learned much. It had been many years ago and he had been little more than a boy, McAllister must understand, but he had learned many Indian tricks. The Apache liked to take Mexican children, boys in particular. Diaz never rightly understood that. The Indians, while being despised as savages by the Mexicans, also despised the Mexicans, yet they would steal their sons to make warriors of them. Some of their fiercest warriors, Diaz maintained, were either Mexicans or had Mexican blood in their veins. He crossed himself piously as he said he thought it a terrible thing that a Christian should lose his immortal soul by becoming an Indian.

He discussed the sign they followed with all the seriousness of an expert, noting with pride how a mule had cast a shoe here, hew that horse had a peculiarly characteristic shuffle of its off forefoot. It was his opinion that all the animals were in good condition and were going strongly, but Rawley showed signs that he wanted to be out of this country fast and was pushing the animals to their limit now. McAllister agreed, Diaz was right in everything he said. He was taking a liking to the tough little vaquero and was beginning to think that he might get by if it came to a fight.

At noon, they stopped and consulted. They had been steadily climbing for the past two hours and were in good green country. It was still hot, but there was a welcome breeze up there.

‘You know where he's headed now, Diaz?'

‘A man cannot know for certain,
amigo.
But it is my guess that he is heading for the river. He will cross the river and then head north-east for the saddle. That is his quickest way through into New Mexico.'

McAllister said: ‘Good, let's turn back.'

They returned the way they had come and reached the basin shortly before nightfall. They kept to an easy pace so that the horses would not be put to any strain at all. They had a lot going against them – physical weakness, paucity of numbers and lack of food – so McAllister did not mean them also to suffer from rundown horses. However, when they reached the basin, they found
that Gato had been generous far beyond their expectations. He had brought not three horses, for which Sam had asked, but four. He had also brought fresh meat. By the time McAllister and Diaz arrived, the Apaches had lost themselves once more in the vastness of the hills. The two men were greeted by the smell of cooking deer meat. So frantic did the smell make them that they could scarcely find time to unsaddle and throw their mounts into the corral. They all ate royally that night and it was a merry party that sat at the rough table in the cook-shack and wolfed down the venison that Carlita served. McAllister looked at his companions with some appreciation. Nobody would have guessed the hardships that they had lately suffered, nor could they have any idea of the dangers they faced in the near future. McAllister was only too well aware of the fact and, as was his habit when he had time to think, he cursed himself for being damned fool enough to have gotten himself into this crazy business.

When they were through eating, McAllister took a look at the animals the Apache had brought in. He couldn't help smiling when he found that the first was a strong and heavily made mule with an army brand on its shoulder. He hoped they didn't come upon any army patrols before they were able to get rid of the animal or they would have some smart talking to do. Two others were particolored Indian ponies which had been run hard for a long time and didn't look as though there were many more miles in them. There was an old saying that when a white man had given a horse up as completely bushed, an Apache would mount him and get another twenty fast miles out of him. Maybe an Apache could have got some action from these two pieces of crowbait, but no white man ever would. The other horse was a tall Spanish horse, a sorrel, and it had not had a good meal in many a day. It had also been run down to skin and bone. But it was still a lot of horse and had a wicked eye. McAllister felt sorry for the man who chose to run it.

Having finished his inspection of the stock and noted that they were all now eating their heads off, which was a good thing, he walked back for a talk with Sam and the others. It would be smart, he opined, to move a good distance away from the basin before they made camp for the night. They all agreed with that. Diaz suggested further that they take advantage of the cool and travel by night for at least a few hours. They were surely pretty safe from Rawley for a while and most of them would sleep little in the night cold of the hills with no blankets. He and McAllister
knew the trail taken by the quarry and he, Diaz, knew the way like the back of his hand. They all thought this a good idea and decided that they should travel by night until around midnight and would halt when they came to good grass and water for the stock. They caught up their horses and saddled by starlight right away. Diaz, claiming boldly that he could ride anything on four legs, decided that he would ride the Spanish sorrel. As he had no saddle and nothing more than a rope hackamore, the task was at first a little too much for him and amid general laughter the animal dumped him three times before the Mexican did indeed prove himself the master. He rode him twice around the basin, showing the animal that he meant business, and there appeared to be a working understanding between them. They packed all the food for themselves and the animals that they could carry on the two Indian ponies, neither of which took kindly to the arrangement, and mounted Carlita on a home-made saddle of McAllister's blanket on the mule. They then moved out, going up the eastern trail from the basin and walking the animals steadily into the night. McAllister was pleased to get away from the mine, for he feared not so much a return of Rawley's men, but a change of mind on the part of Gato and his Apaches. He would rather have to face Rawley and his little army than Gato and his handful of braves any day.

They reached good grass just before midnight with a mountain freshet tumbling nearby and decided to halt. They had made about twenty miles and, though they had not gained on Rawley, at least they were further forward than they would have been if they had stayed back at the mine.

They found themselves a rocky position which could be defended, hobbled the animals and settled down to sleep as best they could without protection against the chill of the night. McAllister stood first watch, Porfirio took over from him and allowed him a sound sleep till dawn. First light saw them on their way, stepping up the pace a little and with McAllister out in front to make sure Rawley didn't have a man watching his back trail.

It was while riding advanced guard that McAllister came on Rawley's first camp site. He dismounted and took a good look around and found it curious that the party that had camped around the fire was a good deal smaller than the one that had been on the trail. This discovery led him to investigate further and, circling, he found that Rawley had scattered more than half his force around a central point. This dividing of his forces puzzled
McAllister at first, but after a while he thought he could see what Rawley had in mind. The man was remembering what had happened back at the mine, the time McAllister had gotten right down among his men and created havoc. Rawley plainly thought this might happen again, hoping that his enemy would work his way to the main camp and then find his retreat cut-off by the scattered men. It looked to McAllister as if Rawley thought that he was being harassed by one man, or two at the most. He grinned wolfishly to himself and decided that he was going to give Rawley an awful surprise. Rawley was too strong to be hit head-on, but there were ways of whittling a superior force down. And McAllister meant to start as soon as possible.

Rawley sat on his fine-looking sorrel horse and watched his armed train moving slowly into camp. Another day had passed and it had been as uneventful as the night. Instead of comforting the man, this made him doubly wary. It was possible, as he knew full well, that whoever had been harassing him had given up, either because he couldn't attain his objective or because he was fearful of the Apaches in the hills. Speaking for himself, Rawley had a healthy dread of Indians. He knew only too well what they were capable of. He didn't doubt that he could get the better of them with his small army of well-armed men, but he wasn't in this business for the heroics, only for the profit. He had kept Pepe all through the day hovering in the van, to the rear and on the flanks looking for sign, but the man had found none. If there was anybody trailing them, he was doing it well.

His men went about the work of making camp without being told what to do. They were, he thought, unusually quiet. He watched them unloading the gold and supervised its stacking. He would sleep where he could keep his eye on it. Sitting down on a rock, he contemplated each man in turn, assessing them. He was aware that they were naturally dividing themselves on
the trail into two parts. There were those who owed allegiance to no one, but who carried out their orders fairly well; and there were those who tended to gather around a man known as Rico. A strange name to give a man – it meant ‘rich' in Spanish. And they already had a man called Rich. This Rico was a man with something of a reputation. There were rumors about his having had trouble with the Mexican rurales, but Rawley did not reckon that the man was a Mexican himself. Certainly, he was dark and he favored Mexican clothes. However, his manner and his movements were those of an Anglo. In manner, he was a quietly aggressive man with an element of menace about him that belied the soft darkness of his eyes. He was tall and strong, had the unusual habit of carrying two belt-guns and had proved himself to be an excellent shot with pistol and rifle.