Kill McAllister (14 page)

First, there was warmth to be assured. He found an old blunt axe head without a haft. He went into the trees and cut himself a suitable branch with his belt-knife and carved it to the right shape for the haft. It was green, but it would have to do. He spliced the head on with rawhide thongs, then he spent a couple of days cutting wood. When he had a goodly pile stacked outside the cabin, he set about making himself a pair of snowshoes. Sam had never seen such things before and took a great interest. To occupy himself he repaired his own worn bridle with thongs of rawhide from the end of his lariat. He was looking something like his old self and was declaring that it wouldn't be long before he was on his feet and pulling his weight again. McAllister tried out his snowshoes, found they would do and set about setting a couple of dozen simple noose traps, so that at least they would have rabbit meat to keep them going for a short while. The pemmican would not last long and, in any case, he was sick of it. His next aim was to get deer meat. His one great worry was ammunition. He had sufficient for the Remington, but he was low on shells for the Henry and for Sam's Spencer carbine. He thought it wouldn't be a bad idea if he made himself a bow and some arrows. As a boy he had been pretty proficient with the weapon and he didn't see why he still shouldn't be. Sam greeted this news with a great shout of laughter. He reckoned McAllister was all Indian at heart.

One thing that interested both men was the question of whether they had any near neighbours, either red or white. Knowing this was largely an unsettled area, McAllister thought that, if there were any men near, they would be Indians. If there were Indians, they could be Cheyenne or Arapaho and either could be a potential danger to them. If they were Kiowas, they would more certainly mean trouble. McAllister made two bars for the door.

When they had been there a week, one morning McAllister checked first on the horses and found that, while not putting on any fat, they were surviving and then started on his first hunt. He left food within reach of Sam, his pistol beside him and told him that he might be gone a day or two. He found nothing the first day, but on the second found a pronghorn scratching for food and killed it with his first shot. He had taken the canelo with him and he packed the whole of the buck onto the animal in spite of the horse's vigorous protests. He returned safely to Sam to find the Negro well, but relieved at his return. There were three
rabbits in the traps and they ate well that night. McAllister butchered the deer and hung the joints safely high in a tree.

Sam said: “We're goin' to make out, boy.”

“I reckon,” McAllister agreed. When he inspected Sam's wounds, he found them healing nicely. The Negro's strength was picking up and after the first week in the cabin they tried out his strength. He was pretty weak, but he managed to walk across the cabin. He rested against McAllister's bunk, grinning weakly. McAllister said: “You're doin' fine, Sam,” and helped him back to his own bunk. Once back wrapped in the buffalo robes, Sam said: “How long's it goin' to be before we get after that Forster, Rem?”

“Spring.”

“Maybe I can't wait that long.”

“Sam, it's snowing outside, we could be inside here for weeks.”

It was true. It was snowing and it snowed for weeks. McAllister went no further than the tree in which he had hung the deer for as long as he could. Then with a vest made of rabbit skins and a kind of parka he had made from a buffalo robe, he ventured out on the hunt again. He took his rifle and bow along, was gone two days and managed to get them a couple of half-starved mule-deer. The snow was by now so deep that he had not brought the canelo with him. Instead he packed them home on a small sled he had made of wood and rawhide. Sam was up and about by the time he reached the cabin, sitting up and smoking, not quite his old self, but remarkably recovered.

“Man,” he said, when he saw McAllister, “am I glad to see you. My belly thinks my throat is cut.”

That night they ate well on deer meat, but McAllister knew that he couldn't afford to rest on his laurels and that if they were to stay alive through the winter, he would have to keep hunting. He hung the deer in the same tree and the following night they had a visit from a mountain lion, hungry and on the rampage. At once both men were alarmed for the horses. They would all look good eating to a hungry lion.

“You'll have to get that lion, boy,” Sam told McAllister. So McAllister went out into the clear snow-strewn moonlight and killed them a lion. It took two shots and it gained them a starving lion and a good skin. They continued to reap rewards from their rabbit traps, though a wolverine was robbing them regularly. The wolves came down from the hills each night and howled around the cabin, so McAllister constructed a rough corral and brought
the horses close each night. He didn't have the ammunition to kill wolves, but he tried out his bow and arrows and had one or two successes. One night the canelo had a fight with a wolf and apparently came off best. After that they didn't worry too much about the horses. But McAllister wished, not for the first time, that they had some dogs with them.

The weeks passed, the two of them lived snug in the cabin while the snow piled up to the windows outside, McAllister hunted when he could and somehow they made out. Slowly but surely Sam got his strength, slowly McAllister's ribs, in spite of his great lack of rest, knitted. It was a waiting time, with both men living for the coming spring, but it was one of contentment for them both. They were men who knew when to talk and when to stay silent. They did what any two men would have done under the circumstances. By the light of the stove at night, they told the stories of their lives, spun yarns about men they had known, talked horses, cattle; talked of adventures south of the Border, talked of what they would do in the future. Sam reckoned he would go back to the colonel, if the old gentleman would have him after this trouble.

“When I tell him what happened,” McAllister said, “an' what's goin' to happen, he'll promote you corporal for life. Don't you fret none, Sam – if'n we don't git them cows, we'll get their worth in gold. An' if we don't get that, by God, we'll get their value in scalps. On top of that, we'll pay for the outfit.”

They stayed silent, thinking about the dead men.

“But, hell, Rem,” Sam said, “where do we start?”

Puffing at his pipe, McAllister said, “The trail's cold, sure. But there's a dozen men.”

“We don't know but two-three of 'em.”

“I remember the men that beat me. Every damn one of 'em.”

“But we can't prove anythin'.”

“I don't aim to prove anythin'. You don't have to prove nothin' when you're killin' snakes.”

Sam pursed his lips. He was getting to know this big man. With anybody else that could have been an empty boast. With McAllister it was the plain truth. He knew too that McAllister had been through considerable mental anguish over the ambush in the valley. Men, good men, had died and McAllister had been able to do little about it, injured as he was. But Sam wasn't forgetting that that same McAllister had saved his, Sam's, life.

“Roll on spring,” Sam said simply.

Mike Grotten backed it. He lived with two cowhands and a Ute halfbreed named Pete who could do everything a white cowhand could do and better except speak English. His English was a living torture.

Mike didn't like the set-up on his frontier ranch right at that moment and he hadn't liked it all winter. He liked the fact that his brother had turned up with something like three thousand head of cattle, but he hadn't liked the responsibility of wintering them. For one thing, he hadn't been prepared and the cows had had to find their own food on the range. His hay would not have stretched to a hundredth part of a herd that size. So he knew some good beeves had died out there in the snow. These animals had never known snow. Maybe half of them were dead out there now. Sure they would drop some hardy calves, the cows that had survived, but that would not compensate them for the tremendous losses.

Another thing he didn't like were the men Dice had brought in here. Mike was a man who liked comparative solitude and wherever he went now there seemed to be a Kansas bravo under his feet. When the first snows had come they had constructed some sort of a shack about fifty yards from Mike's house. They had done it in a slovenly fashion under Mike's tuition and they had lived in it like the hogs they were. They fed on a straight diet of cow-meat, because there was little else to be had. Mike normally shared his own shack with the two hands and the Ute ‘breed. Now his brother and his brother's boss, Forster, were added. And Mike didn't like Forster. Mike was no fool, but he was a simple and straightforward man, even though a not particularly honest one. Link Forster was too smooth by far for him, too educated. And Mike resented the way Dice meekly took orders from him. Maybe Forster had been his superior officer but that had been in a war that was over and done with. In Mike's opinion Dice was twice the man Forster was, did twice the work and, in all justice, those cows out there in the snow were Dice's,
not Forster's.

In appearance Mike was taller than his brother Dice, more finely made, but similar in the lines of his face and the way his hair receded from a high forehead. They had the same thrusting nose and the sharp way of looking at a man once he had their attention.

At this moment, early in the morning, Mike was standing at the window looking out over the sheltered valley which he had claimed for himself the year before. And meant to hold against all men. One day Mike was going to be big, the biggest man in the country.

Suddenly, he became aware of a sound.

With an exclamation he started for the door, opened it and ploughed into the snow of the yard. By God, it was true. What he had heard was the dripping of water. With eager eyes, he watched the water dripping from the roof of his cabin. He ran back into the house.

“Dice, Dice,” he shouted, “git yourself outa there.”

Dice's face appeared over the edge of the high-drawn blankets.

“What is it?”

“Get into some duds and come see.”

Hastened by the urgency of his brother's voice, Dice threw off his blankets and started pulling on his pants. Within a few minutes, he joined his brother in the yard. His face lightened.

“By God,” he cried, bursting out of his usually somber character. “She's come. It's a real thaw, Mike.”

Forster and the other three men came stumbling from the cabin. Forster looked like a man who had been handed a bag of gold when he heard the news. Being cooped up all through winter with what he judged to be a bunch of primitives had been almost more than he could bear.

“How long before we can get the cows out of here?” he demanded.

“Anybody's guess,” said Mike. “A month, two months, depends on if this thaw holds.”

“But we can find out how we stand, how many animals have survived.”

“Sure. Feel like a ride, Dice?” Dice nodded. “Injun, catch up a couple of ponies and we'll see if they're strong enough to hold us.”

The halfbreed went to collect his rope. After breakfast, the two brothers rode out. It was hard going and the horses didn't
like it, the best they could do was jump their way through snow that came up to their bellies. It was a hard core for men and beasts and they didn't cover much ground that day. However, they saw enough to know that the Texas longhorns, ever adaptable, had somehow managed to scrape some sort of a living from under the snow. Sure, a good many had died, but a good many had lived. Just the same, Mike reckoned that a good many had drifted south before the snow and were now down below either the New Mexico or Texas lines. The comparative warmth of the valley had kept those that had stayed. They were lean and almost gentle after their ordeal of hardship, but they were alive.

“Well,” Mike said, as they surveyed a bunch of animals in a protected rincon that was covered with no more than a foot of snow, “you won't make your fortune out of this bunch, Dice, but then you didn't make much investment in the first place.”

“How many survived is the question.”

“I could only guess.”

“Say it.”

“Fifteen hundred at the most.”

“Christ, the captain'll act crazy when he hears this.”

“Who cares?”

Dice shot his brother a reproachful look. He didn't like to hear his captain criticised.

“We'd best get back and tell him.”

They wheeled their horses and started back.

Forster was there to meet them in the yard, huddled in a blanket because he had no winter clothing. Even before they could dismount, he demanded: “Well, how've we done?”

Dice swung down from the saddle heavily. His face was somber.

“You ain't going to be too pleased, I guess, captain.”

“What's wrong, man?” There was a worried note in Forster's voice.

“Well, Mike can only make a guess. It's no more than a guess, remember.”

“How many do we have?”

“Mike reckons no more than fifteen hundred.”

Forster's voice rose to a shriek—

“Fifteen hundred! You mean we've been through all this . . . you mean . . . My God, fifteen hundred!”

Mike almost grinned.

“They didn't cost you nothin',” he said. “It's all profit.”

“Profit! Do you realise I have to pay all those men down there.
A dozen men. They aren't in this for pennies. When they've had their share, I'll have nothing left.”

Mike did grin this time.

“And don't forget you pay me for the range.”

“Pay you for the range,” Forster shrieked. “Pay you for snow and ice? You pay a man for grazing. You don't call this grazing, do you?”

Mike thrust back at him—

“Maybe fifteen hundred cows have lived on my land. You pay in cash or kind.”