McAllister Rides (18 page)

The bodies of the dead were tied onto the backs of their war-horses and then, after they had stared voicelessly up at the rocks for a short time, the Indians rode safely away.

They buried Philo. Grant said a few good words over him and then they sat around and looked at each other, too drained to do anything. The dust of the Indians was disappearing into the distance, a fight that would live on through the generations in the tribes was finished. McAllister would be given an Indian name, he would be remembered and any man who could count coup on him in the future would be a hero indeed. His hair was too short for his scalp to be of any value, but the coup would be enough. The man who counted it could rest on his laurels for the remainder of his life.

Grant said: “We ain't doin' no good sittin' around here. I reckon we should move on afore them varmints change their minds.”

McAllister knew they wouldn't do that. Their medicine was bad and they'd have to do a lot of fasting and praying before it was changed. That was the way Indians were.

“A change of scene wouldn't hurt me none,” he said. All there was to do was take Mrs. Bourn back to her husband and start living a little. The idea pleased him.

“You know your way from here?” he asked Grant.

The ranger said: “I could take you from right here to Ike Goldheimer's without dev-i-ating one inch from the trail.”

“Ike's place'll suit me fine,” he said.

“Two days and we'll be there,” Grant said. “Then I have to face the widows and orphans. I feel real sorry for them Indians after what happened. The hull of Texas is goin' to be fit to be tied. Fightin' men is goin' to bust out all over; they'll beat a trail down to that there canyon so wide you could run a dozen wagons abreast down it.”

McAllister nodded. There was going to be war all right.

He stood. Mrs. Bourn wouldn't look at him. He wondered if she held Iron Hand's killing against him. Could be she had a soft spot for the old savage. Or maybe it was still that she hankered after not going back to her husband. Women, to his mind, were more contrary than mules. He climbed over the rocks and caught up the animals. When he had them saddled, he walked back to the other two and said: “Let's go.”

Mrs. Bourn stood and still didn't look at him. Her face was drawn and he didn't like the look of her.

“It's all over, ma'am,” he said. “You're safe now.”

“I was always safe,” she said, sharply, her head down.

“Didn't look like that, the way old Iron Hand was handling you,” he said.

“He would never have harmed me.”

Grant got to his feet and looked from one to the other, puzzled and troubled.

They went to the horses and mounted. Mrs. Bourn refused to be helped into the saddle. They rode slowly down the slope, heading east. There were no words between them and McAllister felt angry because he thought somebody ought to be grateful for being rescued from Indians. That's the way it was in all the books. And he didn't like being put in the dog-house by a fine-looking woman like Mrs. Bourn. It somehow struck at his very manhood. He let Grant take the lead. Mrs. Bourn rode by the Texan's side and McAllister brought up the rear.

* * *

That night they reached a canyon and there was timber in it. Grant and McAllister agreed that a fire was called for.
They built one and made coffee; they broiled some pieces of salt pork over the flames on green sticks. McAllister couldn't remember when last he had filled his belly with hot food. Mrs. Bourn ate little and retired quickly to her blanket.

“What's eatin' her?” Grant demanded when she was out of earshot.

McAllister sighed.

“Seems like she didn't want to be rescued. Now she's rescued she don't want to go back to her husband.”

“Hell,” said Grant, “where's the trouble? A lady don't have to go back to her old man if she don't want to.”

“I got her outa there for her old man,” McAllister told him.

“Can't blame her for not wantin' to go back to old man Bourn,” Grant said. “Godawmighty, I worked for the bastard for one summer a few years back. He's the meanest, tightest ole sonovabitch this child ever did see.”

“He owes me five hunnerd dollars for getting her out,” McAllister said.

That stopped Grant for a while, but not for long.

“She's a fine gal,” he said. “Finest gal a man could meet in a week's ridin' and then some. Hell, you ain't goin' to force her to go back to her old man, are you?” McAllister gave him a long hard stare and he added a little hastily: “' Course it ain't none of my business.”

“That's right,” McAllister said, “it ain't none of your business.”

Grant finished his coffee and built a smoke. There was a long silence between them. McAllister filled and fired his pipe.

Grant said: “It ain't sittin' too well on you, is it, Rem? Be honest now.”

McAllister snarled: “What ain't sitting too well?”

“You forcin' the little lady back against her will,” Grant said innocently.

McAllister shouted: “I ain't forcin' her. I was hired to save her and bring her back to her old man.”

“That's forcin' her in my book, if you ask me.”

“Who in hell's asking you? Listen, you stupid sonovabitch … old man Bourn hired me –”

Grant reared up.

“Did I hear you call me a stupid sonovabitch?”

“That's right.”

“Only my friends have the privilege of calling me names. You take it back, boy. Goddam, you, eat dirt, or I'll –”

“You'll what?”

“I'll blow your fool head off'n your shoulders.”

“I could cut down on you twicet afore you could clear leather.”

“I don't give a single Goddam if you can empty your gun into me. Swallow them words.”

A woman's voice made them turn.

“Gentlemen, are you quarreling over me?”

Mrs. Bourn sat there with her blanket draped around her shoulders.

Grant mumbled: “I swear I thought you was sleepin', Mrs. Bourn.”

“How could I sleep with you two bellowing at each other like two angry buffaloes? What's the quarrel about?”

“Jest got to callin' each other names, I reckon.”

In the firelight, they saw her smile.

“I heard it all,” she told them. “It's Mr. McAllister's conscience. It doesn't come naturally to him to force a woman against her will. But the temptation of the money's too much for him. He should be pitied.”

Grant said: “That's somethin' like what I was sayin', I reckon.”

McAllister gave him a look of pure hatred.

“Don't let it disturb you, Mr. Grant,” she told him. “At least it means I'm worth five hundred dollars to at least two men. And I suppose there aren't many women who can say that.”

She smiled at Grant sweetly and lay down again.

The two men looked at each other.

“Look, Grant,” McAllister began, but the other interrupted him.

“If it's all the same to you, McAllister, I'druther not talk. I'll fight alongside you, I'll ride with you, but hell that don' mean I have to talk to you.”

He reached for his blanket, wrapped himself in it, rested his head on his saddle and apparently fell asleep.

McAllister said: “Hell's bells,” dowsed the fire and prepared for sleep himself. He reckoned he hated women and, when he came to think of it, he reckoned he hated men too.

They rode on next day across country, two men and a woman, one man wounded and not complaining of the fact, one man raging against himself and the woman and not mentioning that fact, the woman thinking of the husband she didn't want to go back to and not mentioning that. With all the not mentioning that was going on there was pretty heavy silence between the three of them. The animals plodded steadily ahead, slowly eating up the miles while the two men kept their eyes open for any tell-tale dust that might appear between themselves and the far distant horizon. They didn't find water all day, but Grant promised them that he would take them to it before the day was done and true enough, by the time dusk was approaching, he brought them to low-lying land, some stunted trees and a little water. Enough for themselves and their stock.

The sky had been cloudless all day and the heat had been overpowering, so they welcomed the comparative cool of night gladly and drank deep. In a deep hollow as they were, Grant and McAllister decided to risk a fire and they boiled coffee, cooked salt pork and even made some biscuits. They ate royally and relaxed around the flames afterwards, the woman to work on her hair to bring it to some semblance of order and the two men to smoke. After the strain of the day there now descended on them a strange peace and sense of companionship.

“This ain't so bad,” Grant said, puffing smoke. “No, sir, after what we been through in the last few days this is pretty nigh to heaven.”

“There ain't nothing like sitting around a fire,” McAllister conceded, “after a day in the saddle. Maybe you ain't too
sure where you're at, but you sort of feel you've arrived somewhere.”

“For me,” said Mrs. Bourn, “this moment could last for ever.”

McAllister didn't like the sound of that; he shifted uneasily and gave the woman a cautious glance. She sat to one side of him, her face in stark relief in the firelight. If such a thing was possible, she looked even better now that she did in the sunlight.

Grant got to his feet.

“Goin' to take a look at the night before I hit the hay,” he remarked.

He walked away down the hollow and a moment later they heard his footsteps as he went limping up to the plain above.

McAllister and Mrs. Bourn sat for a while in silence which she seemed to find companionable, but which McAllister found painful in the extreme.

“Wa-al,” he said finally, “I reckon we have a long day tomorrow – we could do worse than turn in.”

“Stay and talk,” she said and smiled at him. “There's something about this day I don't want to end.”

“There ain't been nothing special to it,” he said. “We ain't spoke a dozen words all the time. Grant's hurt, you're tired and I'm like a bear with a sore head.”

“Mr. McAllister,” she said, “you don't understand yourself one little bit. You're working against yourself all the time. You've got to know yourself and go along with what you are or you'll never amount to anything.”

“That's a real comfort, ma'am,” he said, “to think that if I listen to your advice I can amount to something.”

“You're trying to make yourself into something you're not,” she told him softly. He saw a trap on its way to catch him and he didn't like it.

“What ain't I?” he said just the same because there isn't a man born of woman who doesn't like to talk of himself to a beautiful woman.

“You're not the hard, callous, unfeeling, downright treacherous kind of man who makes a woman go where she doesn't want to go that you're trying to be,” she told him looking straight at him.

“Hard words.”

“Don't they fit the circumstances?”

“You're trying to get me all tied up with words and I ain't so smart with them.”

She leaned forward a little.

“But you're smart, aren't you, McAllister?” she said. “You pride yourself on being smart and tough and reckless. You're the great masculine man, the man who makes things happen, the man who rides fearlessly into Comanche country to rescue a woman from a fate worse than death.”

“I don't pride myself on nothing.”

“That's a lie and you know it. You're all pride. There's nothing to you but stupid stiff-necked pride. You'd rather risk your neck by getting me away from the Indians to get your stake than demean yourself with work like an honest man.”

“Phew!” he declared. “You certainly shoot straight.”

“And I talk straight.”

“You can say that again.”

“But you've miscalculated,” she told him.

“How come?”

“Somewhere beneath the rawhide you put around yourself there's a man with feelings. There has to be.”

“Why?”

“I don't know why,” she snapped back at him. “I'm a woman – I don't have to know why. I have instincts.”

He looked around to see if Grant was near. He thought he might be safe from this woman if the ranger were around.

He heard a faint sound, turned hastily and found that Mrs. Bourn was right beside him. He almost jumped out of his skin. She laughed and the sound was like music. Deadly music. She laughed right up into his face and her hand was on his arm.

“For a man who isn't scared of Indians,” she said, “you scare awful easy.”

“Mrs. Bourn, ma'am,” he said, “if you're trying to soften me up, this won't get you anywhere.”

“I couldn't soften you up. Five hundred dollars is making you hard.”

Suddenly, she laid her head against his shoulder and he started back from her. But he didn't get away. The grip on his arm was strong, her hair was soft against his face. He felt
the warmth of one breast as she pressed against his arm. He became still.

“You're a married woman,” he said.

“You're only telling me what we both know because you're scared.”

“So I'm scared. I'm scared of losing five hundred dollars.”

Softly, she said: “Can't you stop thinking about the money for one minute?”

“You remind me of it every time I look at you.”

“Can't you believe that I'm here beside you for any other reason than that?”

“What's that mean?”

“I've been through an ordeal, Mr. McAllister. You're a strong man and I'm only a weak woman. Danger, a strong man and a weak woman are a pretty potent combination.”