McAllister Justice (12 page)

Next, they circled the hill a couple of times, then swung
inward and charged up the steep incline. This time they nearly made it, but the rifle fire from above was too much for them. Two horses and three men got themselves shot that time. They all retired for an hour out of rifle shot. They screamed abuse at the defenders, made obscene signs, but did little else.

The gunman said: “My horse is rested up. Let's ride.”

“Maybe you want to lose your scalp,” McAllister said. “I'll keep mine.”

When they circled the hill again, the Sioux used their heads. They charged, but as soon as the rifles above started searching them out, they dropped from sight behind their climbing horses. McAllister downed two of the ponies and then the Indians showed they were smart. Halfway up the hill, they started dropping from their animals. Some ran in crouched up, others dropped to cover. Within minutes, they almost had possession of the hilltop. McAllister killed a man who nearly jumped on top of him, then everything went quiet and there wasn't an Indian in sight. After a while they gave evidence of their presence by sending a few shots and some arrows onto the top of the hill.

The gunman screamed.

Glancing around, McAllister saw that an arrow had transfixed his shoulder from behind. The marshal ran to him, heard an arrow hum past his head like an angry hornet, got a hold of the arrow in the man's shoulder, broke it off short and pulled it out.

The man rolled on his back, white-faced, and said: “Jesus, I'm killed.”

“Any minute now,” McAllister told him and turned to meet the charge.

The oncoming Indians were a blurr of vivid colors, mouths open, yelling. He used the carbine to kill a warrior at twenty paces, crushed the skull of another with the brass-bound butt and made a jump for his horse. He collided with somebody and the stench of paint and buffalo fat filled his nostrils. He tried to lift the carbine for a blow, but it was knocked from his hands. He ducked under a swinging club, smashed his fist into a carmined
face and was knocked from his feet. Tucking his shoulder under him, he somersaulted, came up on his feet and pulled his pistol free of leather. When the gunman screamed for a second time, McAllister shot the Indian standing over him, and saw that the whiteman was pinned to the ground by a lance.

Shouting with triumph a young buck got astride the spare horse. McAllister started shooting seriously. He knocked the boy off the horse, shot a man who rushed him in the face and turned his gun on a little knot of warriors who were charging him. The attack faded as suddenly as it had begun. McAllister didn't wait to find out anything else. He scooped up his carbine, slammed it home in the boot and got aboard. Leaving the spare horse to look after itself, he used the spurs and jumped the horse off the hilltop. The Indians didn't seem to want to part company with him, but he had other ideas. Several shots came at him, but he ducked low in the saddle and rode. An arrow glanced off his saddle-bow, an Indian, bolder than the rest, tried to catch hold of the bridle, leaping from cover, but McAllister rode him down and went on. The horse rocketed down the hill, slipping and sliding and by the time he reached the base, the pursuit had started.

They came kiyacking off the hill, their rage now greater than any fear his gun could instil in them. With shrill cries they swooped past the spare horse that was lagging behind, hit the flat and kept on coming.

McAllister ran them hard into the heat of the day, heading for the hills and not knowing what he might find there. A miracle might land him with a bunch of miners. His usual luck would put him right in the lap of the Sioux nations. The little bay he bestrode was pulling well, but he knew that another hour at this pace and if the Indians could hold it, the animal would be finished.

The horse never had a chance to prove his stamina one way or the other. As the sun hit noon, it went down, snapping its right foreleg with a report like a gun.

McAllister went over its head, managed to twist and came
down almost on his feet. He jarred his wounded shoulder and felt sick. But there was no time for pain if he wanted to stay alive. The Indians were coming on fast. Glancing at the kicking bay, he saw that the rifle was uppermost. Luck. He tore it from leather and drove a shot at the foremost rider and missed. Nerves. He slammed a shot into the pony's head, it kicked a couple of times and lay still. McAllister flung himself behind it and started pumping lead. They scattered out around him, dropping over the sides of their ponies, presenting to him no more than a heel and a hand each. He followed them around and dropped two ponies smartly. He never did see the sense in hiding behind a running horse that could be shot.

The Indians landed on their feet and he knocked one over with a shot up the butt. That was one fine buck who wouldn't swagger any more. The man was maybe thirty paces off and he was so enraged by the agony of his wound that he started a crazy charge. McAllister shot him through the head and that was the end of him.

The Indians slithered their ponies around about a quarter of a mile away and he could tell by the way they carried on that they were not happy about the situation. That made him and them just about quits.

They gave him fifteen minutes to worry and sweat. He was horseless in Indian country. Which was like saying a man was as good as dead.

Just then he heard a clatter of hoofs and, looking up, saw the spare horse trotting toward him.

No,
he told himself
nobody, but nobody had luck like this.

He reached for the rope on the saddle, untied it and built a noose. The Indians saw what was going on and came galloping back, yelling. He dropped the rope and picked up the carbine again. The spare horse, a sorrel, stopped, frightened by the noise of the charge. McAllister groaned.

He got behind the dead horse again and opened fire. The Indians scattered and started circling wide. They were too far for sure shooting and he didn't want to waste ammunition. But they did one good thing. Their yelling scared the sorrel toward
him. McAllister dropped the carbine and grabbed the rope again. Building his loop, he ran toward the animal and stopped, raging with frustration when it halted at his approach, turned and trotted away. The Indians yelled in derision. They halted and watched, enjoying the fun. McAllister ran back, hefted the carbine and shot one in cold rage. That altered their note a bit. They tried a bunched-up charge, but when he lifted his weapon for a shot, they scattered and cleared off well out of rifle-shot. He started with the rope again. He reckoned he could keep on all day like this till he dropped.

But this time, the sorrel stood at his approach and McAllister felt that he threw the rope with his fate in the balance. Happily, he dropped the loop clean over the animal's head.

He had no sooner done so than the Indians came in on the run again. Cut off from his rifle he had to move fast. Gathering his reata, he vaulted onto the sorrel's back and kicked it in the direction of the dead horse. This was easier said than done because the sorrel didn't like the smell of it and started pitching. McAllister cursed it to hell and back, jumped to the ground and took a couple of dallies around the saddlehorn with the rope. The sorrel fought it and nearly strangled himself. McAllister scooped up the carbine, swung on the Indians and fired.

Or he would have done if there had been any ammunition in the damned thing.

Cursing again, he dropped it and drew his revolver.

The nearest Indian was not twenty yards off.

He let him get in close before he lifted the gun and fired carefully. The man took the shot in his chest and went over the rump of his pony, that continued on and jumped the dead horse. McAllister dodged aside and cocked for the next.

This was a young warrior who wanted out, but his horse was running away with him and he couldn't do anything about it. He dropped over the far side of the animal, but didn't go far enough and McAllister managed to shoot him in the leg. He went out of the fighting screaming with pain and anger. The others came in a bunch and were all over him in a second.

That was the only thing that saved him.

They were cannoning together and were having as much trouble with each other as with him. He fired into the mass of them, saw the sorrel stumble to his knees and received one brave bolder than the rest as he dove from the back of his running horse.

McAllister felt strong fingers at his throat and a knee in his stomach. He fired his last shot and staggered to his feet alive. The Indian stayed down dead.

He stood in a thick haze of dust and gun-smoke. It was all quiet except for the roll of fading hoofs. When the smoke and dust cleared he saw that a very small knot of Indians was gathered at a safe distance, watching him.

He tried to stop himself shaking, but when he found that he could not, he went ahead getting the saddle off the bay anyway. That was some chore, but he made it eventually and still the Indians had not ventured any closer. He reckoned that, like him, they had had their bellyful. He got the hull on the sorrel and then got to work on the bridle. That settled, he took a mouthful of water from his canteen and gave some to the horse in his hat. He reckoned it deserved it. He hoped to God the animal was a stayer. At least he was fresher than the Indian's horses and that gave him an edge on them.

After debating whether to stay where he was till dark or ride on, he climbed into the saddle, after he had loaded his last eight cartridges into the carbine, and headed for the hills. The Indians followed, but the spring had gone out of them and when he upped the pace to a fast lope, they started to drop behind.

Dusk found him on the edge of the hills with the sorrel still going pretty well. Here he was lucky enough to come on water. Poor stuff, but better than nothing. At least the horse had a drink. He did not light a fire, but chewed hard-tack washed down with a sip of water from the canteen. He slept rolled in a single blanket, hidden in the rocks with his horse tied to his wrist.

It was an uneasy night, filled by brief snatches of sleep and long periods of wary listening. But he managed till dawn when he saddled and rode slowly along the edge of the foothills
looking for the road in, the one taken by the miners.

He rode through the first half of the day, wilting under the now suddenly powerful sun while the earth steamed from the recent rains. Once he went to ground when he sighted horsemen, but he never discovered whether they were soldiers or Indians. It didn't matter, because he didn't want to be seen by either.

Then, in the middle of the afternoon, he ran onto a sign that couldn't be mistaken. The miners had come this way. Some sort of luck was still with him.

He wheeled into the hills and went on cautiously, his carbine across his saddle bow, his eyes watchful. To follow the miners' sign gave him no trouble. A tenderfoot could have followed it. He reckoned that the party had been over a hundred strong. Well-armed they would have made any but the strongest body of Indians hesitate to attack them. Of course, once they were scattered in search of gold, they would be sitting targets. McAllister had seen them before. Instead of taking time out to build a strong point of some kind where they could gather for mutual protection, they would go straight out after the gold, terrified that somebody else might find it first.

He hoped from the bottom of his heart that Dix was among them.

He would have eventually found them anyway, but the gunfire led him straight to them.

The country he was riding through looked to him to be entirely God-forsaken. The Indians might call it their sacred homeland and they were welcome to it. Maybe they thought it was so damned useless not even the whiteman could want it. But they hadn't reckoned on gold. The valley down which he now rode looked like a giant knife had savagely slashed the mountain. Nature had sown it with scrub trees and a tangle of brush and rocks. A desolate and forbidding place, devoid of beauty, of no use to man except as a hunting ground. And as a storehouse of gold.

The stutter of shots when it came was faint and he reckoned came from his right. He lifted the sorrel to the right grade of the
valley and spurred it up it. The sorrel was tired now and did not hurry itself unduly. The climb into poor timber took him every minute of fifteen and then he rode through the dappled twilight of the trees over the shoulder of the hill and, as the shooting grew louder, burst unexpectedly on the diggings.

The gulch was a raw gash in the hills, already torn through its belly by the picks and shovels of the white invaders. But the tools were still now, dropped where the miners had heard the first shout of alarm and the first shot. They now were no more than puffs of rifle-fire in the rocks, some of them high on the gulch face. It must have been the end of the fight, for McAllister caught sight of the bright plumage of racing warriors as they leapt their ponies over the diggings, dodged around workings, getting out of something they couldn't handle. The Sioux had not reckoned on fire-power like this. No doubt they would be back, but right now they were going to live to fight another day.

McAllister dismounted hastily and pulled the sorrel into cover. He'd been a hero enough for one day. Warriors flogged their horses past him through the timber and within minutes the last one of them had flitted through the trees and was gone. McAllister reckoned there had been some thirty of them. But, he told himself, there were plenty more where they came from. Every man jack in the Sioux nations would be out now the whites were digging in their heart-land. He reckoned he'd be real mature about this. Get into the camp, see if his man was there and pull out. Fast.

He mounted the sorrel and went down into the gulch.

He was not the only man coming out of cover. Every nook and cranny in the place seemed to disgorge an armed man. McAllister was surprised by the number of them. No wonder the Indians hadn't stayed. At a glance there must have been a couple of hundred of them. And that was the ones he could see. As he went on, he saw that the gulch curved into the west and, as far as he could see, there were diggings and diggers. Some had built themselves rough and primitive soddies, others had thrown up shelters of branches with tarps over them, one or two had actually put up cabins. The workings showed that
some had been here for a month or more.