McAllister Justice (15 page)

McAllister liked what he saw of the men he was with. They had had knocked out of them the usual cockiness that such men displayed at the mention of Indians. They were scared enough now to be careful and determined.

Smith and his men manhandled the wagon across the creek while McAllister and the advance guard kept watch from the gulch walls. There were a few long-distance shots from stray Indians as they worked their way south down the gulch, but nobody was hit. But as they left the creek and started to work their way through the hills, the sniping became heavier and more accurate. The little army held their fire, not being able to see the foe, and suffered on until McAllister, never a man to sit still under fire, gathered all the mounted men together and led several sorties out against the enemy. Thus he managed to keep their flanks clear until they reached the plain. Their pace was
slow and they had barely reached the open before night came on them. They pushed on for several hours through the dark, but finally were halted by the tiredness of the animals.

McAllister, after consulting with Smith and a few of the leading lights among the miners and after setting guards, found time to visit with Mrs. Tyson. He found that she was not sorry to be out of the gulch. She had not done badly while she had been there and was pleased by the marshal's suggestion that she looked for a property in Malcolm. There was, he assured her, a good potential trade there. The place was still bursting at the seams with miners. Prices were high, but he would see to it that she received supplies.

He rolled in his blankets knowing that he had made himself a friend. A damned handsome one at that. He'd be a mite happier if he was sure that she was not mixed up with Dix. Trust him to come on two women who could be suspected of being in with the enemy. Well, they were both pretty and that was some compensation. He slept soundly.

Dix found Paston drinking whiskey from a mug sitting on his bed in a rooming house on Bridie Street, Deadwood. He was passing himself off as a drummer. The Texan wasn't pleased to see his gun-hand.

“What in hell're you doin' here?” he asked.

Dix, normally wary with Paston, but now bone-tired from the ride and his nerves shot, answered sharply. “We pulled outa the gulch.”

Paston set his mug down with a meticulous care that showed his rage. He stood up slowly. “You pulled out?”

“We're all washed up there. Half the diggers've done the same. Too many Indians.”

“Christ!” Paston said. “I thought you had sand.”

“I didn't see you there,” Dix told him.

He thought the Texan was going to strike him, but he didn't.

“Did you bring any gold?”

“Yeah. Duggan and Paul have it. Look, boss, we can operate this end just as good.”

Paston sat down again. “We'll have to.”

Dix moved his feet uneasily. “But that ain't all.”

His tone made Paston jerk up his head and stare at him. “Tell it.”

“McAllister.”

“You ain't goin' to tell me he reached the gulch.”

“I'm tellin' you. Jumped into our business with both feet.”

Paston waved him to silence and thought furiously. Finally, he gave Dix a drink and said: “Go fetch Duggan an' Paul. I want that gold where I can see it and we have to talk.”

Dix drank gratefully, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and fetched the other two. The four of them talked for two hours, drinking and planning.

When they broke up, Paston was in a better humor. He
laughed and said: “All we want now is for the Indians to work for us.”

“Why not?” Dix said. “We could talk it around town and in Malcolm that we know miners have been stopped and robbed by the Sioux on the road.”

Paston snapped is fingers, pleased. “Say, that's an idea. You do that. And Duggan, I want guns and the best. That McAllister puts his nose into our business again, he'll get it blown clean off. Six Winchesters should settle his hash.”

The men clattered out and Paston lay down on the bed, smiling. He was going to make his pile this time. Life was sweet. McAllister was going to meet his come-uppance and maybe if things turned out real good he'd go back and pick up little Miss Mann after all. With her, he could turn himself into a respectable wealthy man.

A Week passed.

A shattering week for the whole country that bordered the Sioux territory. First a patrol of cavalry were attacked and scattered by the Indians not twelve miles outside Malcolm. The soldiers had it that the Sioux had attacked them in hordes hundreds strong, but the old-timers, McAllister among them, reckoned cynically that there had been maybe twenty of them. The fifteen-man patrol had lost three dead and two wounded.

Second, a party of miners, eighteen in number, travelling light with saddle- and pack-horses had been attacked and slaughtered to a man about six miles out of town as they crossed the creek. Some said it was Indians and the army agreed because some drunken white scout claimed that the ponies had been unshod and the feathers and whatnot that had been dropped at the place of the massacre had been plainly Indian. Others claimed that it was the same bunch of organized roughnecks who had been cutting men's throats for a poke of gold for months past. The argument against this was that it was the general opinion that the cut-throats were not organized and this attack had been well-planned. McAllister was certain that it was the cut-throats. He said so to Sime Gregson and Joe Diblon. And it would happen again. His problem was what to do about it. How could he get knowledge of any trip made by miners from the diggings when there was nobody who could bring him the news.

A lot happened in that one week. Joe Diblon was now sitting. up and taking nourishment and McAllister was threatening to pin his badge back on him. Meanwhile McAllister had found premises for Mrs. Tyson and helped her set up her business. Already with fresh gold in town she was doing a roaring trade. McAllister saw to it that he had special treatment and made a point in dropping in on her to enjoy her excellent cooking after
his night patrol. She didn't exactly offer him a warm welcome, but she didn't throw him out either. He reckoned that if he was to make any headway with this handsome lady, he would have to ease himself in. Jenny Mann he saw little of, though she did look in at the office to see how Diblon was getting along.

Then suddenly when he least expected it, luck came his way. Such luck that he reckoned that if it was a real paying streak it might not only lead him to the gold-takers, but to the man he had searched for the year past.

Elk Lansbury rode into town. Sometimes he was called simply Indian and that gave a clue to this man who had been up and through the Rockies in the old fur days. He was a loner and he wasn't scared of the whole damned Dakota Nation, as he himself declared frequently. Anyway, he rode into town on his old lop-eared mule and he had tales to tell. And he had them to tell to McAllister.

He had, he said, come down from the north-west through the Black Water country where he had a squaw who belonged to a halfbreed clan of the Tetons. He had stumbled on the gulch which was being mined and there he had met up with the son of a man he used to trap with years back. Sam Lock-year, the son's name was, same as the father. Now young Sam had introduced him to the others and as he came highly recommended they had hired him to bring a message secretly to McAllister. The message was written on the fly-leaf of a Bible. It stated that the diehards of the diggers now found that the gulch was untenable and they had decided to pull out. Word had drifted back to them that the previous party had been attacked near town and wiped out. They did not want to meet the same fate. Could McAllister therefore do something to help them?

McAllister smiled with grim pleasure. He could help them all right. He gave the old man a few hours' rest, bought him a meal and a drink or two, then sent him and Sime off in opposite directions to scout the country. They were to search out any likely spots for an ambush. If they saw any number of armed men moving north either separately or in company, they
were to report back. They talked it over together and Sime suggested that Elk and he should stick together so that one could ride back with any news, while the other kept watch. McAllister agreed and the two set out. The main worry was that the gold-lifters would move only at night.

Two weeks went by, during which time McAllister was busy with his town-duties. He went to dinner a couple of times with the mayor and his wife, took a drink with the judge and played checkers with the now fast-improving Diblon. He also began to wonder if Sime and the old man were dead.

Finally, one night after McAllister had come back to the office after a good meal at Mrs. Tyson's place. Sime came in quietly through the rear door. He was wolf-lean, tired and pleased with himself. After he had drunk his pint of coffee, he sat behind McAllister's desk and put his feet on it.

“Wa-al,” he said, grinning wearily, “while you two old lobos've been sittin' around here on your backsides, li'l ole Sime done settled the bushwackers' hash for 'em.”

“Do tell,” McAllister said coldly.

Sime and the old man, apparently, had circled wide north of the town for three whole days without picking up any sign at all. However, on the fourth day they came on six different tracks made by mounted men who had traveled north during the hours of darkness. Each man had led a horse. They had camped at a spot that Elk said was called Blue Willow Creek, rendezvousing in the dark and lying so low you could of ridden on top of'em without seeing 'em. That is if you weren't as damned smart as Sime and maybe Elk.

A little later after the two of them had backed out of there pretty cautiously, they had come on two Teton halfbreed in-law's of Elk and had learned that more armed men were moving in from the west, having circled wide from the direction of Deadwood. They also stated that they had seen the miners' train moving slowly down from the Black Water country. So there it was, Sime finished triumphantly. The old thing was all set up for McAllister to make a mess of.

Orally, McAllister cut his deputy down to size but he did not like the problem in front of him now that it was so close. Just now it seemed that he had only wanted to know what he knew now to finish this business. Now that he had this knowledge, he didn't know what to do with it. Hell, if he had fifty men instead of two (if you could count Elk, who might want no part of this) he could miss the ambush by a hundred miles out on that damned prairie.

He needed air, to walk and to think. Strapping on his gun, he said: “I'm goin' out.”

“We don't have no time to waste,” Sime told him.

Out on the street, things were simmering off a little. There was only one fight going on outside the saloon opposite and no more than twenty men watching it. McAllister looked the other way.

A flutter of light-colored cloth caught his eye. Outside the store run by Jenny Mann's brother-in-law. At once he was alert. It was Jenny all right. He watched her run along the sidewalk, dodge around a drunken cowhand and dive into the alley by the saloon formerly owned by Paston. McAllister moved. If Paston were in town and the man and woman wanted to meet, where else than in their former meeting-place? McAllister got himself into the shadows of the alley opposite the saloon and waited. He stayed there for an hour without stirring, playing a hunch and keeping his patience like an Indian.

Rather to his disappointment, Jenny appeared at the mouth of the saloon's alley alone, looked nervously left and right and ran back toward the store.

Suddenly McAllister realized that if she had met Paston he could have gone down the alley and reached a horse tied to the south of town that way. He started from his hiding place and quickly stepped back into cover again.

A man appeared from the alleyway, walking casually. It was Paston.

McAllister watched him.

He turned west along Main and McAllister followed, keeping
to the shadows. Twice the man stopped to check if he was being followed and both times McAllister reckoned that he had not been spotted. On Fremont, Paston calmly mounted a horse and leading a second rode at an unhurried trot out of town. McAllister had to hand it to him. He was a cool sonofabitch.

McAllister thought quickly.

Cold reason told him to wait until daylight to pick up the trail. Trailing at night was nobody's picnic. But come daylight it might be too late. Also it might rain and the tracks could be washed out. He turned and ran hard for the office, burst inside and shouted for Sime to get fresh horses. Good ones. The Texan started to complain, but McAllister cut him short.

“Can you watch the store, Joe?”

“Sure, you go ahead.”

McAllister threw a few cans into a gunny-sack as Sime legged it out the door. Next a couple of boxes of shells, then, as an afterthought, a few more to be on the safe side. He said so-long to Diblon and trotted down the street toward the livery and bawled Sime out when he got there because the horses weren't ready. Within fifteen minutes of Paston leaving town, they were on his tail.

The lookout at Blue Willow was awake and alert. He heard Paston's approach when he was a half-mile away and woke the man nearest him. This man turned over and shook the next. Inside a couple of minutes the whole camp was awake and every man stood to his arms as though ready to receive an approaching army. Dix was standing with his gun in hand when Paston rode in. The beefy Texan was pleased with himself at finding the spot unerringly in the dark. That took a real plainsman and no mistake.

He climbed down from his horse and said: “It worked.”

“He spotted you?”

“Sure. Right off. There's two of them. Been on my tail all the way. I'll say this for 'em. They're good. But they're there, all right.”

He walked in among the men, returned their greetings, remembering each of their names. He gave his orders clearly and briefly. He hadn't been a major in the Texas cavalry for nothing. Half the men, toting rifles, drifted out of camp and made their way on foot into the west. The rest lay on their arms and waited. At the approach of dawn, a horseman was heard approaching from the north and after being challenged the newcomer was brought into camp by a guard and told Paston that the miners should hit this spot by noon. They'd been harried by the Sioux for a couple of days and they were not in good condition. It should be a pushover.