McAllister Justice (16 page)

Dawn came up and Paston, not showing himself above the skyline, took a look around.

This was almost open prairie, deeply ridged and hollowed. The creek ran in the soft earth, so deep that the bush and stunted timber that grew along its banks was invisible from most of the open country beyond. But it was awkward country. One could be near an enemy in distance and far off in time because
of the extent and height of the ridges. Which meant also that a man could be on top of you before you knew he was there. In his mind's eye he placed McAllister and his sidekick somewhere directly south of here. If that was correct, they would be well flanked by the men Paston had sent to the west. Whatever happened, neither McAllister nor his companion must be allowed to ride ahead and warn the miners of the welcome prepared for them here.

He thought everything would go all right. But there was always an unknown factor in these affairs and he tried to think of it. But he could not.

He did not know of Elk's existence and even if he had he would have written him off as a foolish old man.

The foolish old man woke, as was his habit, as soon as the first gray of dawn streaked the heavens. He lay in a small hollow with his horse tied to his wrist. As soon as the first distant shot came, he was on his feet, the knot had been slipped and his saddle slapped onto the back of the startled pony. Within a minute his blanket was rolled and tied behind the cantle and the old man was heaving himself into the saddle, cursing the stiffness of his ageing bones. He avoided the hollows and rode the ridges as best he could, keeping below the skyline where possible until the shooting became suddenly loud and close.

It made a coon laugh, the way he nearly rode up the butt of the ambushing party. He knew they were not on his side when he heard from a good distance away young Sime's wild rebel cry of defiance. All Elk had to do was to slip from the saddle, lie prone and hold his old Henry firm and keep feeding in the shells. There were six men lying below him along a ridge, each one of them a plain target. Like shooting drunken Indians as he had done that time up on the Rosebud.

He took the man in the centre so that the panic could spread out on either hand. Just for the laugh he put the first round into the fellow's left buttock. He thought he'd died laughing at the fool's antics. Panic spread all right. One man jumped
up and cast a wild look behind and Elk knocked him over. The shooting died abruptly and the old man treated them to a genuine Hunkpapa war-cry. That settled it before it started. They all got up, except the man shot in the butt and started running every-which-way. Elk hit another in the side and knocked him down, but he got up right smart and legged it away maybe faster than the others.

The old man gave them a few minutes to get clear, then mounted his horse and rode up and down behind the ridge firing his rifle and yipping and whooping in a high-pitched voice. After that he made a wide circle and came on McAllister and Sime forted up in an old buffalo-wallow. They were pretty pleased to see him and thought he was a smart old man to be able to tell them that the main part of the badmen were holed up at the Willows. At the same moment, Paston had left a rear-guard of four men and was riding north to his alternative ambush on Slow Cow Creek. He was enraged that he had been beaten once again by McAllister, but he reckoned he wouldn't let that faze him. If he came up with the miners' train and cleaned it out, he wouldn't have to worry about the man again.

He was moving north at a hammering trot, his little army strung out behind him when one of his forward scouts came in to say that a small body of unidentified men had spent the night at Slow Cow and were still there. Looked like they were waiting on the miners. Paston had no choice but to curse and turn back. Back at the Willows, he found one more of his men dead and the three wounded men he had left as a rear-guard deeply puzzled by the total disappearance of the two whitemen and the party of mysterious Indians. Paston confidently placed his men to advantage among the brush and rocks. Or rather he made a show of confidence. In truth, uneasiness had started to ride him. He didn't like the dual disappearance. If McAllister had ridden on and warned the train, Paston's holding the Willows would be an utter waste. The gold would be lost to him. He was not sure what he should do.

Finally, in mid-morning, unable to bear the suspense any longer, he sent a couple of men out to scout around. But they
returned to say that they could only find the spot where the two whitemen had forted up. There were no signs of tracks going out. But there were two dead horses out there. As for the Indians, where the attack had come from, they could see only the sign of one shod pony and one rifleman. It came to Paston that he had been duped. He didn't think it was funny.

He would have thought the situation even less funny if he had known that McAllister was still within a half-mile of him, having moved with his two companions a short distance to the east They had put black fear into the bushwackers with old Elk's help, but they were not too happy about the situation themselves. Both McAllister and Sime had lost their horses in the first burst of riflefire from the ridge above them. One horse between three was not much of an asset. McAllister thought gloomily that he'd be doing as much good back in town. But as noon approached and Elk sighted the miners' train snaking its way along the ridges and dipping down toward the creek, he bucked up and led them bellying through the grass toward the water. He reckoned that the bushwackers, however strong, might be stopped by three good rifles above and behind them.

Even before they could creep up to the lip of the gully, some trigger-happy fool down below started shooting before the train was deep into the Willows.

McAllister sprang to his feet and led the way at a run. That was a mistake. None of them had guessed that the bushwackers would have been watching the east. The rifle that opened up on them took them completely by surprise. Old Elk fell with a “wagh” of surprise. Sime and McAllister swung out on either hand and dropped into the grass and opened up straight away on the hidden rifle. By the time the shooting down below became general they had blasted their interceptor from his cover and were heading for the gully again.

When they reached it, they could see little for the willow trees, but the shooting from below was deafening. They started to work their way down and quickly came on a scene of carnage and complete confusion. Men, mules and horses
were dying. Not a bushwacker was in sight. From well under cover, they coldly cut down the men who possessed the gold they wanted. The screams of the dying and wounded were blood-chilling.

McAllister and Sime clambered and stumbled their way down. At once they came on a man sitting at his ease firing at the train from behind a rock. Sime shot him through the back of the head. They ploughed on, ducking under willow branches and at last seeing the muddy gleam of the creek-water. They came on two of the attacks from the side and opened upon them. McAllister, finding his rifle empty, threw it down and drew his pistol. The men turned and fired back at them, but one took a little run off to one side and stepped out into the creek with a bullet through his hip. Sime knelt down and clutched at himself and McAllister ran in on the remaining man and clubbed him to the ground.

Paston was frantically at work. He was not concerned with winning a military victory here. Sure, at best he wanted the miners all dead, but his main objective was the gold. As horse-and mule-holders fell, he bawled for his men to drive the untended animals down through the willows out of the gully onto the plain below. Dix came running to him to tell him breathlessly that a quarter of the train had taken alarm at the shooting and were pulling back from the north end of the gully. Paston barked: “Let 'em go. We have enough. Pull out.”

“Christ!” Dix said. “They seen us.”

“Let 'em go. We're all washed up in this country, any road.” He turned and roared at a man: “Get those mules yonder out of here.”

Another man ran up.

“Boss, there's some fellers down the crick. They killed a coupla our boys.”

“My Gawd,” Dix said. “McAllister!”

Paston said: “Aaaah!” in disgust and yelled for men to come to him. He checked their weapons were loaded and led them in a rush down the creek bank, Dix close at his heels.

Immediately Paston and his followers appeared on the
scene, running and shooting through the trees, McAllister knew, with Sime down, that it was time he wasn't there. He put his gun-belt away, hefted Sime, felt the weight drag on his sore shoulder and got out of there. They followed him like baying hounds. But as soon as he made the gully wall and cover, Paston called them off. One man didn't mean a thing to him. Dix might argue that the man had to be killed, but he was concerned only with the gold. He pulled his men out, whistled for the horse-holders and inside a few minutes was in the saddle and riding through the creek after the pack-animals.

That left McAllister with a wounded friend on his hands, a gullyful of dead and dying and a bunch of miners who were hightailing it back the way they had come. First thing he did was to dress the wound in Sime's side the best he could. Next he caught up a wandering mule and rode after the miners. They wanted to shoot him at first, but somebody recognized him and after that he started to get things organized. The train pulled into the Willows and the gruesome business of burying the dead including Elk, began. They cut willow-poles to make travois for the wounded. At a distance they could see their fallen comrades' pack-animals being driven at a fast trot toward the south. And there wasn't a thing they could do about it.

Sime was hurt, but not fatally. The ball had ripped into his side, traveled around the ribs and come out the fleshy part of his back. He was, he told the world, a lucky sonova-bitch. McAllister left him protesting with the miners, borrowed a saddle-horse from a dead man and headed south.

He had seen Paston and Dix. Come nightfall if he had his way, Paston was going to be behind bars and Dix was going to be dead.

It didn't happen as quickly as that.

Neither Paston nor Dix were in Malcolm when he reached it after dusk. Straightway, he called on Jenny Mann and found that she had taken the stage to Deadwood. He went back to the office. By now he was slowing up because he was tired to his bones and his shoulder was giving him hell. In the office, Joe Diblon had sat himself behind his desk. He looked white around the gills still, but he wasn't complaining.

McAllister helped himself from the bottle on the desk, drank and said: “Jenny Mann took the stage to Deadwood. I ride there and this is finished.”

“You mean,” Diblon said, “if Jenny went to Deadwood, it means Paston is there?”

“That's what I mean.”

“And if she's in Malcolm, Paston will be here?”

McAllister looked at him hard.

Diblon nodded.

“She didn't ride any stage to Deadwood. She walked past the window just before you got into town. My guess is she was headed for the livery stable.”

McAllister stood up and helped himself to another drink. Some life seemed to flow back into him. The fiery liquor took some of the kinks out of his tired mind.

“Paston'd be crazy to be here,” he said. His voice showed his doubt.

“I saw two men on the street an hour back that I reckoned always ran with Paston. One had a scar and a thumb missing.”

“Dix?”

“The same.”

McAllister went to the cupboard and opened a box of shells. He put a couple of handfuls into the pockets of his denim
jacket and loaded the gun to even the chamber under the hammer. He took off his gun-belt and laid it on the table. The gun he thrust into the top of his pants. He grinned, briefly.

“Same old way,” Diblon said, looking back over the years and remembering the times he had seen this man draw from his pants' top.

“If you're good,” McAllister said, “you're good from anyplace.”

“That's so.”

McAllister walked to the door.

He turned and said: “See you, Joe.”

Diblon raised a hand.

“Luck, Rem.”

McAllister nodded and walked out onto the street. He wished he didn't feel so damned tired.

He angled across Main until he was opposite the feed store and looked down street to the livery. He could see a light hanging in the yard. Another showed a dim light in the depth of the barn. McAllister didn't like it, but he knew it would have to be here or he would lose the men he wanted. The one man he wanted in particular.

No time to lose. He walked across the street, noting that the mud was now dried hard underfoot in deep ruts. A man could break his ankle or his neck running on them.

The moon was starting to show some light. The clouds were whispy and light. It was going to be a beautiful night. He thought of the woman who had been his life shot down in that border town by a man who was kill-crazy after a fight with the law that had been McAllister. He saw her black hair lying back in the dust and the large dark eyes looking up into his for the last time. Some of his tiredness lifted.

He had to be sharper than he had ever been before in his life for what was going to happen in the next few minutes. He touched the butt of the gun with the tip of his forefinger to judge its exact position. This killing would be played by the rules. Rules the other fellows had spat on all their lives.

He reached the street gate of the livery and stopped.

A man standing in the shadows inside gave a shrill whistle through his fingers.

McAllister said: “Use your smoke-pole or throw it down and walk away.”

The man went very still and said: “This ain't my fight.”

“Throw it down.”

Gingerly, as though the weapon was hot to the touch, the man drew it with finger and thumb and tossed it into the center of the yard.

“Walk by me. I see you in town after tonight, likely you'll hang. This is a good chance I'm giving you.”