Tough to Kill (4 page)

Markham looked as if he would burst a blood vessel while these pleasantries were being exchanged.

Finally, he managed to grate out through his clenched teeth: “Get off my land an' stay off. From now on if'n any rider of mine catches you on my land they use their guns.”

McAllister, making himself a spokesman for his party, said: “I hope you ladies don't share those sentiments.”

“Oh, no,” they all chorused together.

“Then we'll bid you good day, ladies. Maybe you wouldn't have no objections if'n we visited again pretty soon.”

“Come an' welcome,” Carlotta said, her soft dark eyes on McAllister.

“Pleased to see you any time,” Alvina said, her blue eyes on McShannon.

“Make it soon,” offered Lucy dimpling delightfully at poor Jack Owen who was kicking the dust this way and that in his embarrassment.

“Sure will,” said the trio. They lifted their hats gallantly and McAllister said: “Mount up, boys, while I keep a sharp eye on daddy here. I suspicion he don't take as kindly to us as the ladies.”

McShannon and Owen smirked partingly to the ladies of their choice and strode manfully away to their horses. McAllister watched the raging Markham with a hand resting lightly on the butt of his Remington. When the two were mounted, McShannon called out and McAllister, with one last appreciative glance at the smiling Carlotta, walked to his horse and stepped into the saddle. He turned it and walked it across the yard. As he passed the nearest bunkhouse and he found Foley and the other two men standing near the door.

“See you in town for that drink, Foley,” he said.

Foley looked at him out of dead eyes.

“It won't be a drink you'll have in your hand,” Foley promised, “it'll be a gun.”

McAllister touched spurs to his horse and joined the other two. Together, they trotted away. They looked back to wave to the girls. Markham was dancing on his hat.

Somehow during the next few days, the work got done. McShannon and Jack went around in a dream and even McAllister was occasionally seen to have a silly grin on his leathern face. When they were together, there wasn't much conversation. McShannon was heard to say something like: “Ever see a gal like her?” and Owen to stammer out: “That smile! A gal never smiled at me like that before.”

Sarie didn't like it one little bit. Maybe she was old enough to be jealous. She had looked after the three of them for a year now, ever since Jack Owen had saved her from the Turvis gang after the hardcases had killed her family.* In some ways she was like a daughter to them all, but she was in other ways like their mother. After all, they were only men and all they knew was horses, cattle and guns.

“For gosh sakes,” she said to McAllister, “what's gotten into you three? You're moonin' around like you was sick or somethin'. Enough to give a girl the willies.”

“Speakin' for McShannon an' Owen,” McAllister said, “I'd say it was love.”

“Love!” the child snorted. “If that's what does it to you, save me from it.”

“That's somethin' I can't do,” he told her. “It'll come to you as sure as bellyache.”

McAllister and McShannon rode their lines, drifting back strays. McShannon rode still as if it were a real chore, but he was rapidly getting over his beating and never complained of so much as a twinge. He knew he wouldn't get any sympathy from McAllister if he did. Jack Owen worked at his horses. He had a good string, was pleased the way they were coming along and hoped that by mid-summer he would bring some cash money into the outfit from their sale. He knew horseflesh if he knew nothing else and had great hopes from crossing his red mustang stallion with two thoroughbred mares he had bought. He boasted that before he was done the MC connected horses would be known all over the country.

“You'll be able to recognise 'em just like they had their names painted on 'em,” he never tired of saying.

They half-expected trouble from Markham, but certainly none came in the week that followed their meeting with the ladies of the house. McAllister admitted frankly that he expected something spectacular from a man of Markham's stamp. His pride had been hurt as well as his body and he wasn't a man to forget that. Foley too wasn't a man who would back down from an insult.

“So,” McAllister said, “when we go into town, we go together. We don't want any repeats of McShannon's performance.”

“Get off my back, Goddam you,” McShannon snarled. “Why, is it still sore?” McAllister asked him.

*

When trouble first showed its head, it did not come in town, it came to the MC Connected.

Sarie was in the house at the time, Jack Owen was smoothing out the kinks in a rough one in the starve-out while McAllister and McShannon were riding the range somewhere to the south. Jack was having some disagreement with a tough little bay gelding that had wintered out in the valley and showed some reluctance to rejoin the company of man. Certainly he was doing his best to part company with Jack. After several trips around the corral during which the bay tried to unseat him in a dozen different ways, including rolling on him, Jack decided it would be pleasant to stretch his legs on terra firma. He dismounted, dodged the bay's flying hoofs and fought him till he was tied to a snubbing post. He reckoned to leave him there some considerable time without food or water, a hardship that might tend to mend his manners.

He went to climb over the fence when he came face to face with a man on the other side.

It was Markham.

Jack stared at him, shocked. Fear was his next emotion.

The horse-breaker finished climbing the fence and stood staring at the rancher. Markham was mounted on what Jack saw at once was a first class piece of horseflesh. It had breeding and speed in every line. Jack preferred an animal a little shorter in the leg and stronger in the barrel, but the black Markham bestrode was worth a cowpoke's yearly pay and then some.

Jack's eyes shifted back to the bull-frog. The little eyes were deadly.

“Howdy, son.”

Markham's words were spoken pleasantly enough, but Jack read menace in them and he was right to do so.

“Howdy,” said Jack.

“You look kinda nervous.”

“Who? Me? Why should I be nervous?”

Markham jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

“That's one reason. I'm the other.”

Jack looked in the direction indicated.

His breath was snatched from him. Between the corral and the creek, on a low ridge, was a line of horsemen. At first glance, he thought they numbered hundreds, but at a more careful count he saw there were about fifteen. They were about two hundred yards away and they all seemed to be watching him. Here and there he could see thin spokes sticking up in the air and knew they were rifle barrels. Horses shook their heads and the faint sound of the music of the bridle chains reached him. A man or two shifted and eased himself in the saddle. Otherwise they were motionless and silent.

“Where's McAllister and McShannon?”

Jack flicked his eyes to the house and saw Sarie on the stooo. He wanted to shout for her to go inside.

“They're in the house,” he said.

Markham's frog mouth seemed to split his face from ear to ear.

“If those two hellions was here,” Markham said, “they'd be right in front of me askin' what the hell I was doin' on their land.”

“They ain't far off,” Jack told him hastily. “They just rode out a piece. I'm expectin' 'em any minute.”

Markham told him: “They won't be back till dark. An' when they get here they ain't goin' to find no thin'. Not a damn stick'll be standin'.”

Jack was horrified. Only a little over a year back, the Turvis gang had burned McShannon out and he had had to rebuild. McAllister and McShannon had trusted him to guard the place. And there was Sarie.

“No,” he said, “you can't do that.”

Markham crossed his arms and leaned forward onto the saddlehorn.

“You stick your neck out, boy,” he said, “an' I'll put a rope around it.”

Fear held Jack still for a moment, then he burst suddenly into action and ran along the corral fence trying to reach his gun that was hanging from a post.

There was a shot from the direction of the ridge. The lead hit the corral fence and splinters flew into his face. He stopped, jerking around with wide eyes and heard the sound of the rope. He tried to duck and felt it settled over the upper part of his arms. He got his hands inside the loop and tried to
free himself, but Markham jumped his horse around, the noose tightened and Jack was ripped from his feet. Distantly, he heard Sarie scream.

He hit the ground hard and the wind went out of him. Markham dragged him a few yards, then turned his horse, whipped the noose off him and coiled the rope.

Jack lay there, staring up at him.

He heard the sound of the horses on the ridge getting on the move. The riders were streaming down into the yard. Sarie ran toward Markham, screaming at him. A rider blocked her way, she dodged and ran into another horse. Every time she made a move, there was a horse in the way. In the end, she gave up and sat down in the dust and wept in frustration, fright and rage. The men laughed.

Markham shouted: “Take this boy to the creek and drop him in.”

Jack got to his feet and started to run along the corral fence, aiming to get over the fence, get astride a horse and ride out of there.

He didn't get a dozen yards before he ran a foot into a cleverly thrown loop. The cowhand plucked one foot from under him and the running horse took him the rest of the way to the creek. It would not have taken long to kill him that way. He had seen a man dragged that way down in the Nations once and it was a sight horrible enough never to be forgotten. But he was alive when they reached the creek. There were several riders there. They took the rope from around his ankle, got him by his legs and arms and lobbed him into the water. He couldn't swim, so he nearly drowned. But he managed to make the shore and staggering dripping to his feet. He walked to the first ridge and watched the riders who had thrown him in rejoin their fellows. Markham was in the middle of them, bawling orders. Men dismounted and ran this way and that.

Jack caught sight of a flutter of cloth and knew that was Sarie. He saw her strike at Markham with both fists. A rider jumped his horse to her and plucked her from the ground on the run, turned his mount and went yelling like an Indian out along the valley, Sarie fighting and clawing every inch of the way. About a quarter mile from the house, he dumped her in the long grass, howled his laughter and rode back again. Doggedly, screaming curses she had learned from the men she
lived with, Sarie started to walk back to the house.

Jack thought bitterly that if McAllister or McShannon had been there they would be among the men with their guns out, but here he was, standing dripping like a half-drowned dog, gunless, unable to do a thing.

He watched the men open the corral gate and drive all the horses out and, whooping, spook them down valley on the run. Then he saw the men with the axes they had found in the barn chopping the corral posts to matchwood and throwing them in a pile, dowsing them with coal-oil and setting fire to them. He saw the man carry the can of coal-oil into the house and knew what that meant. For the second time a house on this spot was going to be burned down. Jack almost wept with rage and helplessness as he watched. They had known Markham was rough but who could have guessed that he would have gone this far?

When he saw the flame burst out through the window and smoke start to billow, his bitterness was complete. He sat down and watched and promised himself what he would do to Markham one day. He had played hell with the Turvis gang, hadn't he? By God, he'd take up the gun again. He occupied his time, noting details of the men so that he would recognise them again.

Sarie changed course and came and sat by him. She slipped a hand in his and tried to comfort him.

“There ain't nothin' you can do, Jack,” she said. “There's too many of 'em. Neither of the Macks would of tried to fight a big bunch of men like this.”

They fired the barn full of good summer sun-cured hay that was to feed their saddle stock through the winter so they would not have to let them range free and go hunting for them in the spring. Jack clenched his fists and ground his teeth together in almost uncontrollable rage.

Then they were done after about five of them had dropped their ropes over the chimney and brought the tall stone edifice crashing down. They rode shouting and laughing to the ford, Markham in the lead, calling gibes to the man and the girl. They splashed noisily through the water and rode away over the rise.

By the time Jack and Sarie had reached the house, it was no more than a glowing ember.

McAllister and McShannon rode up at a steady lope. Jack and Sarie rose to meet them. Dusk was falling and Jack couldn't see the faces of the two men. They got down slowly from their saddles. McAllister walked over to the burning embers and stared at them for a moment.

“I don't have to ask if that was Markham,” he said when he turned back to the others. “I reckon I misjudged the man. I didn't think he'd go this far. He's more Injun than I thought.”

McShannon said! “He ain't the on'y one 'at can be Injun.” He said it quietly as if some of the go had gone out of him.

Jack said: “It was my fault. I should of stopped 'em. Blame me.”

“How many were there?” McAllister asked.

“A hull lot,” Sarie told him. “Maybe fifteen or twenty.”

“An' what do you reckon you could do against that number, boy?” McAllister asked.

“If it'd been you or McShannon,” Jack said, “you'd of shot it out with 'em.”

McAllister laughed dryly.

“I never thought a house was worth a man's life, Jack. You did right to sit still. What I would of done. There's more ways of killin' a coyote than stranglin' it.”