McAllister Makes War (19 page)

He started thinking about Will Drummond. He would like to see the man's face when he heard that McAllister had escorted his girl home. Then the thought hit him that the woman could be a decoy. She could be leading him straight into another bullet.

Looking down at the delicate profile below him, he discredited the suspicion.

She must have become conscious of his gaze, for she turned her head and raised her eyes to him. He thought that he had never seen a finer pair in his life. She smiled and he patted the hand on his arm.

“What were you thinking, Mr. McAllister?” she asked.

“I was thinking you could be leading me into a trap,” he said gently. “He's tried everythin' else. A woman as lovely as you might clinch it for him.”

She didn't get mad at him, which surprised him.

In a low voice, she said: “Who has tried everything else?”

“Drummond,” he said.

There was silence between them for a moment. Then she halted and turned to him.

“Should you make wild accusations like that in your position?” she asked.

“You'll see,” he said.

“I thought perhaps... I didn't like you at first... I thought you coarse and hard.” She stopped, drew a breath and went on. “Then I thought... well, I changed my mind somewhat. Now I hear you saying things like that about a fine man ...”

He smiled.

“Just put it down to crazy jealousy,” he said.

“How can you joke?” she said.

“I said it lightly,” he said. “I ain't jokin'. I'm deadly serious. If Drummond was out of the way, I might stand a chance.”

She didn't know what to do. She felt a little mad, but at that moment she didn't want to be mad with him. Somehow she liked walking quietly through the starlight with this big self-assured man.

“The trouble with you, Mr. McAllister,” she said, “is you don't know the rules.”

“One thing my ol' daddy taught me with a belt buckle, Miss Emily,” he told her, “was that when courtin' a lady or fightin' there ain't no rules. You're out to win or you didn't ought to start in.”

“I should be angry with you.”

“Later. Get mad at me when the stars go in an' your pa asks you where you were this time of night.”

She laughed.

“He's asleep. All the gun shots in the world wouldn't wake him once he's asleep.”

They strolled on and came to her house.

“I have been complimented on my coffee,” she said. “May I offer you a cup.”

A trap,
his mind told him.
It has to be a trap. This is too easy.
Then he looked at the girl again and told himself he was a fool.

“I'd like that,” he said. “But won't folks talk.”

She looked up at him and laughed.

“You
are
old-fashioned, Mr. McAllister,” she said.

She led the way around the side of the house, let him into the kitchen and turned up the lamp on the table. She told him to sit down. He found a chair which gave him a view of the outside door and the door leading into the house. She put the pot on the stove. They talked. He told her something of his life, about his old man and about his not knowing whether his mother had been Mexican or Cheyenne, remarking that his father had told so many stories she could have been a Vermont Sunday school teacher, for all he knew. But that was something that didn't matter - a man was what he was and that was the end of it.

He told her of his boyhood, the hardness of it, how he never knew whether he would be living with his father or boarded out with some ranching family or other, how twice he had lived with the Cheyenne.

“My,” she said, “you must have had an unhappy childhood.”

“Unhappy!” he exclaimed amazed. “Why, ma'am, I had the happiest childhood a man ever could have.” There had always been something to learn, to do. He had never been still from one minute to another. He had learned to hunt, ride the wild ones, learned to track like an Indian, to talk Cheyenne and Spanish, he had learned cow-sense, he had ... why he had once even learned to read. He'd been scared and hungry, but he could never remember being really unhappy. The world was a good place to live in and if you gave the human race a chance on its own terms it was made up of a pretty good set of people. Sure there were some bad ones, but that was what guns were for.

“You make it all so simple,” she said. “Don't you ever find yourself puzzled by life?”

“No, ma'am,” he told her. “Puzzlement is for the smart fellers. I ain't smart, I'm just cunnin' like an animal or an Indian. I keep alive, I have fun and I reckon that's enough for any man.”

“I wish I had your confidence.”

“You're a beautiful woman, you don't need it. All you need is a man who has it.”

The coffee boiled over. She jumped up with a cry, covered her hand with a cloth and whisked it to the table. She poured and they sat sipping coffee.

“Emily,” he said suddenly, “I want you to know I wish it didn't have to be this way.”

“What do you mean?”

“Drummond.”

She looked away from him, trying to hide her face from his searching eyes.

“You do not have any proof,” she said. “It does you credit that you want to find Art's murderer, but this isn't the way to find him. Will Drummond is well-thought of in this town. I respect him and I hope to marry him.”

McAllister said: “You suspect as much as I do, so you might as well face up to it now. You won't marry Drummond while I'm alive. That's for sure.”

She turned and looked at him.

“You have absolutely nothing to go on,” she said.

“I soon shall have.”

“How?”

“Because it's my guess he's used every way he can think of killing me an' he's about run out of killers. He'll have to do it himself.”

“You can't mean this. You just can't.”

“I can and I do. Break it off with him, girl. Now. There'll only be grief in it for you.”

She started to cry. McAllister was distressed; he hated women crying. He never knew what to do.

“Now, see here, ma'am ...” He rose. “Aw, shucks ...”

He put a hand on her shoulder, she laid a wet cheek against his hand. Putting a hand under her chin, he lifted her face a little so that she looked up at him. He could think of only one thing to do and that was to kiss her, mostly because he wanted to. So he kissed her. In the first moment, her mouth trembled under his. He put on a little pressure and slowly she responded. He lifted her to her feet, their mouths still locked and suddenly, she clung to him. They strained at each other, not able to get close enough.

When at last he took his mouth from hers, he found that he was trembling slightly. It was rather a pleasant sensation.

She said: “You'll think I'm a bad woman.”

“If I did, it would be mighty ungrateful. I think you're the most wonderful woman I ever did see.”

She smiled wanly.

“You know the right words,” she said.

“I know the right actions too,” he told her and lowered his mouth to hers again. She was thinking of Will Drummond. Here, right in this house, he had made love to her. Maybe at heart she was a bad woman. Suddenly, she didn't care. McAllister was right, he had the confidence for both of them. She was in his hands. She couldn't remember when she had felt happier.

At last, she managed to say: “I think you should go.”

He stepped back from her, smiling down at her flushed face, and saying: “I'll go if you want me to.”

“You know I don't want you to.”

He grinned boyishly.

“Then I won't go I reckon we're old enough to make up our own minds what we want to do.”

She came into his arms with a rush. She hurt his wounded arm, but he didn't care much.

An hour later, he kissed her at the door. The lamp was dim and her dark hair had fallen about her face. She looked very beautiful.

She said: “We haven't decided anything. Now I have another problem in place of my old one.”

“You have no problem with me, honey,” he said. “I gave it you straight. I ain't marrying right now, but I love you like hell. I ain't promisin' nothin'. We have what we have and let's make the best of it. Your problem with Drummond is easily solved. Cut adrift, fast. Tomorrow. See him and tell him.”

“But there's my father. He depends on Will.”

“Drummond won't be there to depend on when I take him.”

“You know,” she said, “when I'm with you, nothing seems to matter much.”

“That's the way it should be.” He kissed her and patted her on the bottom. She clung to him for a moment and whispered: “Please be careful.”

“I always am.”

He stepped out into the night and she closed the door softly behind him. He stood for a moment, getting his eyes used to the dim light of the stars, thinking, glad that Emily Penshurst had
not been a trap. He liked her and she sure made sweet love. He wished she could be let down lightly over Drummond, but she could not. There was not much of a future ahead of her unless she met a good and steady man. But that was the way it went. What had to be done, had to be done.

He walked around the house.

At once he saw that there was a man standing under the cottonwood tree beyond the picket fence. He didn't stop, but his hand slipped down onto the butt of the Remington. As he came through the gateway, the man stepped forward.

“McAllister - a word.”

It was Drummond.

“Yes.”

He couldn't see the man's face, for it was hidden under the brim of the hat, but he knew from every line of the man's body that he was held in the grip of tension and rage.

“I saw you.”

“So?”

“You've been in there with the woman I intend to marry.” McAllister laughed.

“You ain't marryin' anybody, Drummond,” he said. “You're goin' to hang by that fancy neck of yourn.”

“Stop that foolishness. You know perfectly well that I am a respectable and law abiding citizen. You don't have an atom of proof against me. If you don't stop spreading that story I shall bring a case in law against you.”

“Go ahead and see where it gets you.”

“You'll leave that girl alone or I - I'll -”

“You'll what?”

“I'll kill you.”

McAllister said: “You tried that often enough already without no success. Try it now, Drummond.”

They eyed each other.

Drummond stood consumed by rage, his hands clenching and unclenching.

McAllister stepped up close to him and repeated: “Try it now, you yeller-livered coyote.”

Drummond stepped a pace backward.

“You're a braggart and a bully, McAllister. You know I'm no hand with a gun.”

“I know you're a murderous skunk, Drummond. All you have the guts for is shooting men in the back. Like you shot Fred Darcy. Or cuttin' 'em down in the dark like Marve Little.
Or having other men do it like you had Frank Little done in. Or hiring a couple of gunnies like the two we settled out on the street tonight. Try it now, you yeller bastard.”

McAllister hit him with the back of his hand across the face and knocked him from his feet. Maybe this was the moment when he took Drummond. His right hand brushed the handle of the Remington. He prayed the man would produce a gun from somewhere.

Drummond lay where he had fallen. His hat had come up and his face was revealed. His hair had fallen over the eyes that stared at McAllister with crazy intensity. He wiped his mouth with his hand and got slowly to his feet.

“I'll kill you for this, McAllister.”

“Do it now.”

“I'll choose the time and the place.”

“Like you always do,” McAllister said. He hit the man again, knocking him back against the tree. He heard the wind go out of him.

The man screamed something at him.

McAllister watched him, thinking that he had never wanted a man dead so much before.

Drummond heaved himself away from the tree, picked up his fallen hat and straightened his clothes. He gave the big man a look of pure hatred and walked off down the street.

McAllister sucked his knuckles meditatively and followed slowly. He reckoned Drummond would make his try soon. His pride wouldn't let him leave it for long.

* * *

Drummond entered the house by the kitchen door and the woman looked up at him from her knitting. Her eyes widened as she took in his battered face.

“What happened to you?” she demanded.

“Shut your ugly mouth,” he told her and walked past her into the house.

She laid down her knitting and thought a while. She knew the signs. Drummond was starting to crack. What they had working for them here was about to fall apart. When it did, she wouldn't be here. She was one to look after herself.

* * *

When McAllister walked into the office, the lamp was low and Pat and Carson were asleep. He felt his way to the desk and
found the whiskey. He had taken his second mouthful when Carson woke up. He reached over and turned up the light.

After a good look at McAllister he said: “You look like the cat that got the cream.”

McAllister smiled gently.

“I got the cream tonight,” he said enigmatically, “but tomorrow I get best prime steak.”

“What the hell's that supposed to mean?” Carson demanded.

“It means I got right under Drummond's skin and pretty soon he's comin' for me in person.”

“Don't you ever give up?” Carson said. “You still don't have a damned thing on the man.”

“Tonight he threatened to kill me. What more do you want than that?”

“What did you have to do to get him to say that?”

“That'd be tellin'. Have a drink.”

“No, thank you. I'd druther have my sleep.”

“Every man to his taste.”