McAllister (12 page)

The man went down, kicked a couple of times, gave a low hollow moan and lay still.

Mcallister had difficulty in retrieving his knife so tightly was it jammed between the ribs. When it was free he wiped it on the stinking breech-clout and returned it to his sheath. He started searching around for the Remington, but exhaustion overcame and he sat down to rest. Only when his breathing was easier after gulping in air hungrily, did he remember the shots that had been fired and how far they could have been heard in this desert country. He searched hurriedly till he found the Remington and started stuffing loads into the chambers. Then he looked around for his animals. All he could see was one dark shape that could have been the bay. He wanted the mule with the rifle on the saddle.

He started toward the bay that at once shook its head and ran off.

Mcallister stood and cursed weakly.

He listened and heard the music of the bridle-chains and knew the mule wasn't far off. But when he headed toward the sound, it receded into the gathering darkness.

He stood and thought. The Indian's pony could not be so very far off and it would be tied most likely. Tied to what? Ground-hitched, then. Had it spooked at the gun-fire and tried to run?

From beyond the small cliff-face to the east came the soft howl of a coyote. Mcallister froze. The little wolf didn't sing
as soon after dark as this. Silently he cursed his fool animals. If they had stayed, he'd be a mile away by now. He drew the Remington and bellied down to the still hot ground. That way he could hear better and it gave him some small sense of protection. Now that some of the excitement was over, he could feel that his leg was pretty bad.

He reckoned that whoever was out there in the darkness was looking for the buck just killed. With no horse to ride, he could do nothing but wait it out.

Soon the stars appeared and not long after the moon peered down on the endless wasteland from out of a cloudless sky, throwing a giant saguaro into stark relief nearby. An eerie stillness, disturbed only by the movement of the mule somewhere behind him, possessed the scene. The desert world seemed too tranquil and serene for there to be a death-toting savage within a couple of hundred yards of this spot.

As soon as the moon came out, Mcallister moved not even a finger. Like a wild animal he froze to absolute immobility, knowing that his moon-shadow moving would catch the eye of any alert Apache, particularly if he was on higher ground.

When an Indian did appear, he came so suddenly and so silently that he was within spitting distance of Mcallister and in plain sight before he was aware of him.

“José!” Mcallister called softly and saw the big Navajo nearly drop in his tracks with fright.

José looked in his direction and said: “Goddam!”

Mcallister got to his feet and limped toward the Indian.

“You sonovabitch,” he said.

The reply came in guttural Navajo, then the two men flung their arms around each other. Then Mcallister laughed and said: “Who was scared most, huh?”

That got the Navajo mad.

In Spanish, he protested: “I am a renowned warrior. Why should I be afraid of these Mescalero and Chiricahua dogs?”

“They ain't like the Mohaves and Mexes you raided as a kid—they fight back.”

The Navajo grunted in disgust and spat.

“Now you're here,” Mcallister told him, “make yourself useful. Somewhere out there, I have a mule and a horse. There's an Indian pony someplace, too.”

“The Indian pony I have. Your animals, I get.”

He strode away in the moonlight to fetch his horse and
rope. Within thirty minutes he and Mcallister were jogging south, the whiteman tied to his saddle because the leg had now become so bad that he found it difficult to keep his senses and his seat. José had re-dressed the wound, but it had broken open and was bleeding profusely. As he rode, Mcallister gripped the tightened stick of a tourniquet, loosening it every fifteen minutes or so when he could remember. Rapidly, the ride became a nightmare and he rode through an insane world of fire and searing heat. All he could remember was the Navajo begging him to allow him to stop. All that big buck got for his pains was a cursing and so some instruction in the rich obscenities of the whiteman. They readily ate up the miles south to Mesquite Springs. That was all Mcallister had in his mind now—to reach the Springs, to reach Clover and that fat, murderous old toad, Carmody.

Clover Pulled in his horse and said, letting the men hear the rough edge on his voice: “Stay still.”

They halted, the horses coming together as though finding comfort in the close proximity of their own kind in this eternally empty land.

The outlaw heard the soft pad of the shoeless Indian ponies out there in the moonlight, just out of his sight.

“They're still there,” he said and, for the first time, the listening men heard a faint note of despair in his voice.

Franchon said: “They don't ever attack at night. We stir ourselves, we can be at the Springs by dawn.”

The horses rattled their bridle-chains and the saddles creaked as men eased themselves on the leather.

“My guess is you're about to see that old yarn made into a lie any minute now. Gato ain't no more afraid of the dark 'n you or me.”

Rand said: “It's gotta be the gold they're after. Okay, so let 'em have gold.”

“Don't make me laugh,” Clover told him. “You think
toted this I gold all this way just to give it up to a bunch of Goddam savages?”

“Not all of it,” Rand said. “Dicker with Gato. Hell, he don't like losin' men any more'n we do.”

“Don't fool yourself none. That boy would cut our throats if'n there was gold or not. Slittin' your throat pleasures him just like … like … like Franchon killin' a man.”

He heard the gunman draw his breath in sharply and chuckled his challenge. By God, he wasn't finished yet and if he wanted to bait a
pistolero
like Franchon, he'd do it.

Franchon said in his soft cold voice: “You're pilin' it up for youse'f, Clover, but no matter how much you make it, you can't make it worse.”

Clover laughed out loud, so suddenly that his horse jumped.

“Boyo, you scare me more'n Gato. I'm purely shakin' in my boots.”

The other men, expecting violence, started backing their horses away. But nothing happened and nothing would happen between him and Franchon till he was good and ready. That was why Clover was still alive, he always picked his own time and place. Except for now. He couldn't do that with Gato. Rage touched him.

“Git on,” he said, “we're wastin' time.”

He turned his horse south and lifted it into a run, the two pack-animals lumbering clumsily along in his wake. The others spurred their horses to keep close, as if they feared to be too far away from a man who was afraid of nothing.

Like shadowy ghosts the Apache horsemen rode their parallel trails, pacing them, waiting for the opportunity to swoop in and finish them.

Toward dawn, when there was no more to light their way than a dim star light that was diminishing by the minute, Clover halted again. The horses were in a bad way now and knowing horses as he did, he was doubting that they had enough left in them to get him and his men safely into town. There must be another ten miles at least to go. The pack-animals seemed to have suffered most and were all the time hanging back on their lead ropes.

Clover looked up at the stars.

“When them little lights go out, they'll jump us.” They all started looking over their shoulders, seeing an Indian in
every cactus, in every patch of darkness. “We stick together. Any man gits separated, he's dead. Listen for my beller. Keep close.”

Rand asked: “What do we use for shells?”

“You don't have shells, use the butt of your carbine.”

They waited.

The Indian ponies out there no longer traveled along their line of advance. Now they padded softly in the dust all around Clover and his men.

Carmody's driver whispered with a sound no louder than the rustle of a dry leaf: “They're all around us.”

They heard the rhythmic click of Clover's gun as he cocked it. When they lifted their eyes, they saw that the stars were going out one by one.

Somebody said: “Aw, Jeeeesus.” The blasphemy had never sounded more like a prayer on his lips.

Suddenly there was a strange sound like
thunk
close in among them. Something fell so hard against Rand that he was nearly knocked from the saddle.

“What the hell—?”

A horse reared up and a man swore.

Rand almost screamed: “It's an arrow. My Gawd, he's been hit by an arrow.”

Squinting through the darkness, Clover saw that the saddle of Carmody's driver was empty.

“Rand,” he said, “you got him?”

“Yeah. He fell right on top of me. I heard this noise then he fell right … they got him in the throat.”

“Pitch him out.”

“I cain't. I …”

Rand had trouble with his horse.

Clover growled hoarsely: “Pitch him away, you damn fool, afore he spooks the hosses. No, drop him. We'll move off a bit. Come ahead, follow me.”

They all heard the dull sound as the dead man hit the ground. A couple of horses started bucking tiredly, but the men held them and edged them away from the body. It was pitch dark now and they were still trying to sort themselves out and bunch again when all hell let loose. A horse screamed and went down, throwing its rider into another man, one of the pack animals tried to get itself free and Clover started bellowing for them to keep together.

Rand yelled: “Every man for himself,” and they heard his quirt lashing his exhausted horse into a run.

Clover roared: “Goddam you, come back here,” but it was no good, Rand was away. They heard him pound south. No more than thirty seconds had passed when they heard his inhuman shriek as he ran into his first Indian. Somewhere out there a warrior laughed mockingly, cackling with obscene mirth, mingling the sound of his laughter with the death screams of the dying whiteman.

In that moment, there wasn't a man in the Clover group that wasn't unnerved. Clover himself was about to shout for all of them to follow him in a wild ride south, when the Apaches saved them. As the cold wraith of the false dawn deceived men over the entire desert country, the actuality of the Apache coming shrieking and yelling out of that ghostly grayness, the men stood firm in the face of the reality of the danger.

Schneider remarked in a suddenly calm voice: “There they are, see 'em?”

“Sure,” Clover said, “there's one for the pot,” and knocked a man from the back of his racing pony with one shot.

Franchon said: “You're not a bad shot, Clover, but I'll bet you ten to one you have to shoot for the body.”

“It kills 'em just the same.”

“In time. But the head shot puts them out right off,” the gunman told him and suited the action to the words. The second Indian of that fight fell almost at their feet so that the whitemen's ponies shied at the stench of the bear-grease and blood.

Another buck, low over the neck of his speeding pinto raced by, shot an arrow at them and went on. As the arrow passed among them, harming nobody, Schneider followed the uncertain shape with his rifle sights and fired. The pinto turned a somersault, the rider leapt clear and came down on his feet running.

“Bad, man, bad,” Clover told him. “This light's puttin' you off. Watch it or you don't git no bonus.”

Schneider laughed and laughing died as a man on foot dashed among them and swung a war-club that smashed his skull like an eggshell. Franchon turned in the saddle and shot the Indian through his open mouth as he howled his hate and
defiance. The man fell against Schneider's horse as the dead whiteman pitched from the saddle. Dead whiteman and dead Indian fell in a heap together and Schneider's horse took off like all the devils in hell were after it. Clover and Franchon fired steadily as the Indians out there tried to catch so valuable prize as a whiteman's saddler.

When there wasn't anything more to shoot at, the two men started reloading.

Franchon said: “Well, Clover, that leaves just the two of us. Real cosy.”

Clover chuckled amiably.

“How about a little bet on us both reaching Mesquite, Franchon?”

“Lay you a hundred.”

“You call that gamblin'. Man, you didn't remember. We're rich.”

Franchon allowed himself a cold smile.

“Right. Five hundred we make the Springs.”

Clover roared: “Goddamit, that's my bet.”

“All right,” Franchon remarked, “that suits my book. We both think we'll make it.”

He gathered up the lead-rope of a pack animal from Schneider's dead hand, bending gracefully from the saddle to do it. He next took a hold of the reins of Carmody's man's horse, then said: “Ready to go when you are, Clover.”

The outlaw looked through the gloom speculatively and said: “I'm goin' to kill you mighty soon, Franchon, but by Gawd, I never aimed to kill a better man.”

Franchon said: “Flattery won't save you, Clover.”

When true dawn came, they moved on. There wasn't an Indian in sight, dead or alive. The only evidence that they had been there at all was the dead pinto pony that Schneider had killed. And, of course, there were the grisly remains of Rand. The Apache had done the job crudely because they were in a hurry.

Mcallister Planned to reach Mesquite Springs at dusk and that's the way it was. He and the Navajo rode slowly in from the east on jaded mounts, Mcallister acting like a man in drink because the fever was on him. The experience wasn't new to him and he treated it like an overdose of whiskey, forcing himself to think slowly and carefully. On the outskirts of town, he made José untie his legs and clung tight to the saddlehorn as they walked their horses slowly down the street. The light was poor and the lamps were not yet lit, they kept to the darkest part of the street, cut down a side alley halfway down Main and got around the back of McAllister's corral without knowing that they had been seen by anybody they knew.